3rd December 2010

04/19/231

Mic Porter

04/19/23 Mic Porter2

Events [1]…1910 – Georges Claude demonstrates neon lighting at the Paris Motor Show (3-16) – a new form of advertising/light pollution is commercialised! Among the show was the Peugeot 105 (launched 2 years earlier), available in various versions including “sport”. Its 11.1 litre six-cylinder engine produced 60hp and via the chain drive the vehicle could reach 100km/h (60mph). Impressive? Well I’m impressed!

1929 – US President Herbert Hoover announces to Congress that the worst effects of the recent stock market crash have passed and that the American people have regained faith in the economy.

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Events [2]…1964 –Police arrest 800+ University of California students (Berkeley Free Speech Movement) following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building. A protest against the University’s decision to forbid protests and political actions on University property.

1967 – Christiaan Barnard’s team carries out the first heart transplant on Louis Washkansky(53) at Cape Town’s Groote Schuur Hospital. The donor, Denise Darvall (25), was in a car accident. The operation was a success but the anti-rejection drugs used compro-mised his immune system, and he died after 18 days (double pneumonia). The heart had worked well; better drugs quickly followed improving the success rates.

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Events [3]…1973 –Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up images of Jupiter.

This one from a mere 2,584,000 Km.

(NASA image)

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Events [4]…

people outright and injuring c600,000 others (many die later, others are still dying). To date the worst “single event” industrial disaster/catastrophe.

Poor choice of method (known possibility of exothermic reactions if water mixes with an intermediate), poorly specified plant design (including safety systems) and a lack of maintenance are among the causes identified. The adjacent shanty town accounts for the massive numbers killed/affected.

1984 – The gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaks, overnight (2/3), from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killing over 3,800

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Events [5]…1997 – In Ottawa representatives from 121 countries sign (now 156 ratified + 2 signed). The Ottawa Treaty (formally the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction). Among the 39 non signatures are: Cuba, India, Israel, USA, People's Republic of China, and Russia. Current list at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parties_to_the_Ottawa_Treaty#Non-signatory_states

2007 – UN Climate Change Conference (3 - 15) in Bali, Indonesia. Initial calls for global emissions to peak in 10/15 years and decline "well below half" of the 2000 level by 2050 (developing) and for 20-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 (developed) countries rejected; compromise "deep cuts in global emissions" Bali, arguably, nothing achieved!

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Ins…1948 – Ozzy Osbourne, singer, insurance salesman and husband of Sharon!

1952 – Mel Smith, Actor and comedian

1953 – Franz Klammer, Austrian skier

1959 – Eamonn Holmes, TV presenter from Northern Ireland

1976 – Mark Boucher, South African cricketer

2005 – Prince Sverre Magnus of Norway (3rd in line of succession to the Norwegian Throne – Rickhard to advise on details!)

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Outs…

1894 – Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (b. 1850)

1919 – Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (b. 1841)

1980 Sir Oswald Mosley, 6th Baronet politician and fascist. In the House of Commons (1918–31) as, successively, a Conservative, an Independent, and a Labourite. In 1932 founds the British Union of Fascists (“Blackshirts”). With followers, distributes anti-Semitic propaganda orchestrates hostile demonstrations. Interned during World War II (until 1943) with his wife, Diana Guinness, a sister of Jessica and Nancy Mitford and friend of Adolf Hitler. (b. 1896).