THE “10 AUGUST” OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION – AUGUST 10, 1792
Storming of the palace | Artwork by Jean Duplessis-Bertaux
On 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution, revolutionary Fédéré militias — with the backing of a new municipal government of Paris that came to be known as the “insurrectionary” Paris Commune and ultimately supported by the National Guard — besieged the Tuileries palace. King Louis XVI and the royal family took shelter with the Legislative Assembly. This proved to be the effective end of the French Bourbon Monarchy (until it was restored in 1814, the monarchical system of an empire had been introduced ten years earlier). The formal end of the monarchy occurred six weeks later, as one of the first acts of business of the new Convention.
This insurrection and its outcome are most commonly referred to by historians of the Revolution simply as “the 10 August”; other common designations include “the journée of the 10 August” (French: journée du 10 août), “the insurrection of the 10 August”, or even “the revolution of the 10 August”. [Source: Wikipedia]
Photograph by Myrabella
Catacombs of Paris: plaque commemorating the fighting at the Tuileries on 10 August 1792, during the French Revolution. Many of those killed in this event had been buried directly in the Catacombs.
THE LOUVRE MUSEUM IN PARIS IS ESTABLISHED – AUGUST 10, 1793
Photograph via Photos-galeries.com
The Musée du Louvre, or officially Grand Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world’s largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement (district). Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet).
The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) which began as a fortress built in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are still visible. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation’s masterpieces.
The museum opened on 10 August 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings, the majority of the works being royal and confiscated church property. Because of structural problems with the building, the museum was closed in 1796 until 1801. The size of the collection increased under Napoleon and the museum was renamed the Musée Napoléon. After the defeat of Napoléon at Waterloo, many works seized by his armies were returned to their original owners.
The collection was further increased during the reigns of Louis XVIII and Charles X, and during the Second French Empire the museum gained 20,000 pieces. Holdings have grown steadily through donations and gifts since the Third Republic, except during the two World Wars. As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings. [Source: Wikipedia]
THE MANSON FAMILY MURDERS OF LENO & ROSEMARY LABIANCA – AUGUST 10, 1969
On August 10, 1969, around 1 a.m., the LaBiancas (Leno and Rosemary) arrived in Los Angeles. After dropping off Rosemary’s daughter Suzan at her Los Feliz apartment, they stopped at a newsstand on the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin streets. Leno, a regular customer, was recognized by the newsstand owner, John Fokianos, who readied a copy of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Sunday edition, and a racing form. Fokianos and Leno briefly discussed the Tate murders, which had occurred the previous night.
Sharon Tate, an actress and pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski, had been murdered along with four others in the early morning hours of Saturday, August 9, 1969 at her home on 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon. Talk of the recent murders disturbed Rosemary. Fokianos was the last person, aside from the killers, to see the LaBiancas alive.
Charles Manson, the leader of the Manson “family,” orchestrated the murders for the sake of Helter Skelter, an apocalyptic war he believed would arise from tension over racial relations between blacks and whites. Displeased with the previous night’s messy events at the Tate residence, Manson insisted on accompanying the next Helter Skelter mission, which he scheduled for August 10. The four “family” members who had participated in the Tate murders, Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel and Linda Kasabian, were again summoned by Manson along with another Family member [Leslie Van Houten]. Manson ordered Kasabian to cruise the neighborhoods of Los Angeles, in search of potential victims, before settling on the home of the LaBiancas. Manson had a previous connection to Waverly Drive. In March 1968, Manson and other “family” members had attended a party at the home of Harold True. True’s house was located at 3267 Waverly Drive, next door to 3301 Waverly Drive, the LaBianca’s house
Both Leno and Rosemary were stabbed repeatedly to death.
DAVID ‘SON OF SAM’ BERKOWITZ IS ARRESTED – AUGUST 10, 1977
David Richard Berkowitz (born Richard David Falco; June 1, 1953), also known as Son of Sam and the .44 Caliber Killer, is an American serial killer and arsonist whose crimes terrorized New York City from July 1976 until his arrest in August 1977.
Shortly after his arrest in August 1977, Berkowitz confessed to killing six people and wounding several others in the course of eight shootings in New York between 1976 and 1977; he has been imprisoned for these crimes since 1977. Berkowitz subsequently claimed that he was commanded to kill by a demon who possessed his neighbor’s dog.
Berkowitz later amended his confession to claim he was the shooter in only two incidents, personally killing three people and wounding a fourth. The other victims were killed, Berkowitz claimed, by members of a violent satanic cult of which he was a member.
Though he remains the only person charged with or convicted of the shootings, some law enforcement authorities argue that Berkowitz’s claims are credible: according to John Hockenberry formerly of MSNBC and NPR, many officials involved in the original “Son of Sam” case suspected that more than one person was committing the murders. Hockenberry also reported that the Son of Sam case was reopened in 1996 and, as of 2004, it was still considered open. [Source: Wikipedia]
DISCOVERY OF MURDERED 6-YEAR-OLD ADAM WALSH – AUGUST 10, 1981
Adam John Walsh (November 14, 1974 – c. July 27, 1981) was an American boy who was abducted from a Sears department store at the Hollywood Mall in Hollywood, Florida, on July 27, 1981, and later found murdered and decapitated. Walsh’s death received national publicity. His story was made into the 1983 television film Adam, seen by 38 million people in its original airing. Walsh’s father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims of violent crimes and the host of the television program America’s Most Wanted.
Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to the boy’s murder but was never tried for the crime. Although no new evidence has come forth, on December 16, 2008, police announced that the Walsh case was now closed as they were satisfied that Toole was the murderer. Toole died of liver failure on September 15, 1996.
On July 27, 1981, Walsh’s mother, Revé, let him watch a small group of older boys play video games at a Sears store in Hollywood, Florida, while she walked a few aisles away to shop for a lamp. When Revé returned to the video game section about seven minutes later, Adam and the group of boys were gone.
There are claims that a security guard threw the children out of the store for bickering over the video game. It is suspected that Adam was abducted near the front exterior of the store after the other boys left. Adam’s severed head was found by two fishermen in a Vero Beach, Florida, canal on 10 August 1981. The rest of his remains have never been recovered. The coroner ruled that the cause of Adam’s death was asphyxiation, so the decapitation was an afterthought, perhaps intended to render his remains unidentifiable or the cause of his death indeterminable.
The Code Adam program for helping lost children in department stores is named in Walsh’s memory. The U.S. Congress passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act on July 25, 2006, and President Bush signed it into law on July 27, 2006. The signing ceremony took place on the South Lawn of the White House, where leaders from both sides of the political spectrum joined John and Revé Walsh. The bill institutes a national database of convicted child molesters, and increases penalties for sexual and violent offenses against children. It also creates a RICO cause of action for child predators and those who conspire with them. [Source: Wikipedia]
Photograph by dbking
John Walsh, father of Adam Walsh, filming a segment for his show ‘Americas Most Wanted’
REAGAN SIGNS THE CIVIL LIBERTIES ACT OF 1988 – AUGUST 10, 1988
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 is a United States federal law that granted reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned by the United States government during World War II. The act was sponsored by California’s Democratic Congressman Norman Mineta, an internee as a child, and Wyoming’s Republican Senator Alan K. Simpson, who first met Mineta while visiting an internment camp. The third co-sponsor was California Senator Pete Wilson, seen in the picture to the right. The bill was supported by the majority of Democrats in Congress, while the majority of Republicans voted against it. The act was signed into law by President Ronald Reagan.
The act granted each surviving internee about US$20,000 in compensation, with payments beginning in 1990. The legislation stated that government actions were based on “race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership” as opposed to genuine legitimacy.
Because the law was restricted to American citizens or legal permanent residents, the ethnic Japanese that had been taken from their homes in Latin America (mostly from Peru) were not covered in the reparations, regardless of whether, after the war, they remained in the United States, returned to Latin America, or were deported to Japan. In 1996, Carmen Mochizuki filed a class-action lawsuit, and won a settlement of around $5,000 per person to those eligible from what was left of the funds from the CLA. 145 of those affected were able to receive the $5,000 settlement before the funds ran out. In 1999, funds were approved for the attorney general to pay out to the rest of the claimants.
Japanese American internment was the forced removal and internment of approximately 120,000[4] Japanese and Japanese Americans (62% of whom were United States citizens) from the West Coast of the United States during World War II. While approximately 10,000 were able to relocate to other parts of the country of their own choosing, the remainder – roughly 110,000 men, women and children – were sent to hastily constructed camps called “War Relocation Centers” in remote portions of the nation’s interior.
President Franklin Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, which allowed local military commanders to designate “military areas” as “exclusion zones”, from which “any or all persons may be excluded.” This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion, removal, and detention, arguing that it is permissible to curtail the civil rights of a racial group when there is a “pressing public necessity.” [Source: Wikipedia]
MALENCHENKO FIRST PERSON TO MARRY IN SPACE – AUGUST 10, 2003
Photograph by NASA
Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko (born December 22, 1961) is a Ukrainian-Russian cosmonaut. Malenchenko became the first person to marry in space, on 10 August 2003, when he married Ekaterina Dmitrieva, who was in Texas, while he was 240 miles over New Zealand, on the International Space Station. As of March 2011, Malenchenko ranks tenth for career time in space due to his time on both Mir and the International Space Station (ISS).
During his distinguished career as a cosmonaut, Malenchenko was awarded the Hero of the Russian Federation medal, the National Hero of Kazakhstan medal, Military award of excellence, Commendation medal, Achievement medal, “70 years of the Soviet Armed Forces” medal and three Meritorious Service medals. [Source: Wikipedia]
2006 TRANSATLANTIC AIRCRAFT PLOTTERS ARRESTED – AUGUST 10, 2006
The 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada. The plot was discovered and foiled by British police before it could be carried out and, as a result, unprecedented security measures were immediately put in place.
The restrictions were gradually relaxed in the following weeks, but the ability of passengers to carry liquids onto commercial aircraft is still limited. Of the approximately 24 suspects who were arrested in and around London on the night of 9/10 August 2006, eleven were charged with terrorism offenses on 21 August, two on 25 August (subsequently discharged on 1 November), and a further three on 30 August. Eight men (Ahmed Abdullah Ali, Assad Sarwar, Tanvir Hussain, Oliver Savant, Arafat Khan, Waheed Zaman, Umar Islam, Mohammed Gulzar) were charged in connection with the plot. The trial began in April 2008 and ended in September. The jury failed to reach a verdict on charges of conspiracy to kill by blowing up aircraft, but the court did find three guilty of conspiracy to murder.
In September 2009, a second trial (of the eight men excluding Gulzar but with the addition of Donald Stewart-Whyte) found Ali, Sarwar, and Hussain guilty of the plot. In July 2010, Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Khan and Waheed Zaman were found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court and sentenced to life in prison for conspiracy to murder. They must serve a minimum of 20 years in prison before being eligible for release.
In the immediate aftermath of the raids, no hand luggage was allowed except for a very few essentials such as travel documents and wallets. Hand baggage was reintroduced at some smaller airports on 14 August, but was not permitted at Heathrow and Gatwick Airports until 15 August. The size of baggage was restricted to 45 cm × 35 cm × 16 cm, but this was increased to 56 cm × 45 cm × 25 cm as of 22 September 2006. In November 2007 Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly announced that from 8 January 2008 British airports will be able to allow more than one item of hand luggage on board. This was following criticism in October by the shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers, who said that because of the restrictive rules, Heathrow was “rapidly becoming a national embarrassment”.
Following the operation, United States Homeland Security banned all liquids and gels except baby formula and prescription medications in the name of the ticket holder in carry-on luggage on all flights. As of 13 August 2006, airline passengers in the United States could take up to 3.4 US fl oz (101 ml; 4 imp fl oz) ounces of non-prescription medicine, glucose gel for diabetics, solid lipstick, and baby food aboard flights. The TSA also began demanding that passengers remove their shoes so they may be X-rayed before boarding. [Source: Wikipedia]
CLICK HERE TO SEE ALL PREVIOUS ‘THIS DAY IN HISTORY’ POSTS