Jose Rizal

Person of the Day:

Jose Rizal (1861-1896) is known by many as the national hero of the Philippines. Rizal was born in Calamba, Laguna as Jose Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda and was the seventh of 11 children. Rizal attended Ateneo Municipal de Manila, and graduated at the age of 16 with honors, taking a post-graduate course in land surveying. In 1878, Rizal enrolled in the University of Santo Tomas as a medical student, but quit the school because of discrimination against Filipino students by Dominican professors. In 1882, without informing his parents, Rizal left on a ship for Spain and enrolled at the Universidad Central de Madrid.In 1884, Rizal received his medical degree and graduated from the Philosophy and Letters department the next year. Inspired by the increasing blindness of his mother, Rizal went to the University of Paris and later to the University of Heidelberg to study ophthalmology. While on his travels of Europe and Asia, Rizal learned 22 different languages including Arabic, Chinese, Sanskrit, Latin, French, and English. Rizal hoped to secure political and social reforms for the Philippines, published works with nationalistic and revolutionary tendencies. In March of 1887, Rizal published Noli Me Tangere, a satirical novel on the arrogance and despotism of the Spanish clergy. In 1891, El Filibusterismo, the sequel to Noli Me Tangere, was published. These works and others provoked the Spanish officials in the Philippines into imprisoning Rizal in Fort Santiago in Manila. Rizal was exiled to Dapitain, on the island of Mindanao, for four years. During those four years, Rizal taught school and encouraged agricultural reform While on Dapiatn, Rizal met and fell in love with Josephine Braken, who brought her father to him for a cataract operation. When the two applied for a marriage

license, the Church denied the application due to Rizal's excommunication. The Philippine Revolution broke out in 1896. Rizal denounced the violence and received permission to travel to Cuba to tend to yellow fever victims. On the way, the Spanish arrested him, then took Rizal to Barcelona then Manila for trial. Tried by court martial, Rizal was charged with conspiracy, sedition, and rebellion. Although there was a lack of evidence, Rizal was given the death sentence. Rizal was allowed to marry Josephine two hours before his execution by a firing squad on December 30, 1896. He was 35 years old. Rizal's last literary work was a poem entitled Mi Ultimo Adios ("My Last Goodbye"). Spurred on by the death of Rizal, the Revolution continued until 1898, and with the help of the United States, the Philippines defeated the Spanish and declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, creating the first democratic republic in Asia.

Infromation from..

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/profilesofasianleaders/p/joserizalbio.htm

and

http://www.joserizal.ph/bg01.html

Antonio Stradivari

Note: The picture has nothing to do with the article.
Today in History:

Amazing things have happened on this day. Most importantly, today is the first day of Christmas vacation for my two sisters and I. That's right. I will use bad grammar in celebration. Along with being the first day of Christmas break, today, or December 18th, was the day that Antonio Stradivari died 273 years ago. Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) was an Italian violin maker during the Baroque Period. Although Stradivari is virtually unknown among non-violin players, he is widely considered as the best violin maker of all times. Stradivari was born in Cremona, Italy and is believed to have been mentored by Nicolo Amati, who came from a famous family of violin makers. As a violin maker, Stradivari would experiment on how to make the perfect instrument by experimenting with factors including wood type, varnish, shape, size, and wood thickness. Most instruments made by Stradivari are signed, "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonesis Faciebat Anno [insert year here]", or , in English, "Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, made in the year [insert year here]". This inscription is a Latin phrase, and it is because if this inscription that his violins are referred to as 'Stradivarius violins'. Stradivari's best instruments are said to have been made between 1700 and 1725, and these violins are preferred by world-class musicians over any other type of violin and tend to have a better tone than other violins. In 1737, on this day, Stradivari died at age 93. Over his lifetime, he made over 1100 instruments, including harps, guitars, violas, cellos, lutes, and mandolins in addition to his violins. Of these many instruments, only about 650 survive to this day.

Information from...

http://www.answers.com/topic/antonio-stradivari

and

http://www.stradivariusviolins.org/antoniostradivari.html

Donuts for Your Viewing Pleasure

#15- John F. Kennedy

Lee Harvey Oswald never knew his father. His father had died before Oswald was born in New Orleans. Because of having no father or steady income, Oswald had to move houses and schools frequently, attending 12 different schools during his childhood. Oswald became withdrawn and temperamental, and is known to have hit his mother and threaten his brother-in-law's wife with a knife. After being ordered to go into psychiatric observation, doctors diagnosed personality pattern disturbance with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies. Although never finishing high school, Oswald became a Marxist and joined the U.S. Marines. In the Marines, Oswald was court-martialled twice and not accepted for being a Soviet sympathizer. In the end, Oswald left by saying that he had to care for his injured mother. In the October of 1959, Oswald emigrated to the Soviet Union, and announced that he wanted to renounce his US citizenship, but his application for Soviet residency was rejected. After this, Oswald attempted to cut his wrists, and this led to the KGB to recommend his deportation, but Oswald found a job in an Electronics factory in Minsk. It was here were Oswald met Marina Prusakova, whom he married in 1961. After fourteen months, Oswald brought his wife and child back to the United States. After settling in Dallas, Oswald attempted to assassinate the right-wing former general Edwin Walker, for which he was never apprehended. After the brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Oswald moved back to New Orleans, where he became involved in pro-Castro demonstrations and activities. Oswald also visited Cuba, with the intentions of going to the Soviet Union, but instead, went back to Dallas. On November 16th of 1963, a Dallas newspaper said that President Kennedy would be coming through the city, near the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald was working. Oswald was last seen there by a co-worker, alone on the sixth floor about 35 minutes before the assassination. At about 12:30pm on November 22nd 1963, President Kennedy was being driven around Dallas, and as he turned left directly in front of the Depository where Oswald was inside. After one shot was fired, Texas Governor John Connally relized that it was not a firecracker, like the crowd had assumed, but a high-powered rifle. When he turned to warn the president, it was too late, for a bullet had already entered Kennedy's back and entered through his throat. After being hit, Kennedy leaned forward and to his left, where his wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, cradled him in her arms. Connally was also hit by a bullet and is reported to have said, "My God, they are going to kill us all!" A third shot was fired, which took a part off of the right side of Kennedy's head. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was riding two cars behind the President, and took the oath of office on Air Force One at 2:38pm as it departed from Dallas. He became the 36th president of the United States. Police officers and spectators ran towards the Triple Underpass, but found no sniper, but Howard Brennan, who was sitting across the street from the depository, notified the police that he had seen a man with a rifle shoot from the corner window on the sixth floor. Oswald exited the building right before the police sealed it off, and took a bus home. As he walked, a police patrolman named J.D. Tippit. Oswald shot Tippit four times with his revolver before running into a shoe store, whose owner alerted the police of Oswald's whereabouts. Oswald then ran into a Texas theater without paying, and was soon tracked down by the police, who arrested him eighty minutes after the assassination occurred. Oswald was charged with the murders of J.D. Tippit and of President Kennedy. At first, Oswald denied all knowledge of the crimes, but later claimed he was a front for others. While being moved from police headquarters to the county jail, Oswald was shot by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Oswald was was rushed to Parkland Hospital, the same hospital where Kennedy went to, but was pronounced dead while there. Although killed before his time, Kennedy accomplished much during his lifetime. He was the youngest elected president of the United States and the first Roman-Catholic president. He was a war hero and the creator of the Peace Corps. Kennedy led the country through the Cuban Missile Crisis and signed the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age, the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. After being killed, Kennedy's body was brought back to the White House, where his flag-draped, closed casket was moved to the Capitol for public viewing. Thousands went to see the coffin, and representatives from 90 countries, including the Soviet Union, attended the funeral on November 25th. President John F. Kennedy was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

#16- Henry IV of France

Henry IV of France (1553-1610) is said to be one of the most gifted monarchs of France. Henry was a cruel man, flogging his own children even, but was also athlete, and loved hunting and playing tennis. Henry was also very brave, leading his troops into battle personally, but was also a politically clever, and was able to lead France into an impressive recovery after 30 years of religious wars. Henry was baptized as a Catholic when he was a child, but he was raised as a Protestant by his mother. His mother, Jeanne d'Albert, had already declared Calvinism as the religion of Navarre, a small kingdom in the Pyrenees mountains. When he was only a teenager, Henry left the capitol of Navarre, known as Pau, and joined the Huguenot forces in the French Wars of Religion, and fought with the Prince of Conde and Admiral Coligny. It was in 1572 that Henry became King Henry III of Navarre, when his mother died. In an attempt to end the religious fighting, Henry married the sister of Charles IX of France, but Catherine de' Medici and her Catholic supporters, led by the Duke of Guise, also named Henry, had no intention of letting the marriage last. Six days after the wedding, on St. Bartholomew's Day, the royal family authorized a huge burst of violence against the Protestant community, which led to the massacring of thousands of French Huguenots. Henry of Navarre only escaped by pretending to convert to Roman Catholicism, but after escaping prison in January of 1576, Henry renounced his conversion and rejoined the Protestant armies. In 1584, Francis, Duke of Anjou and Alençon, heir and brother of Henry III, current king of France, died, leaving Henry of Navarre as the legal heir to the French throne. Because Salic Law disinherited any who claimed the throne by the female line, Henry of Navarre was the closest heir, being that he was directly descended on the male line from King Louis IX, who died in 1270. Because of this, Henry of Navarre took the thrown when Henry III was assassinated in 1589, and was the first Bourbon king of France. When he became king, Henry IV renounced his Protestant faith in view of Catholicism. He was crowned as king the next month. In 1595, Henry declared war on Spain, and a year later, allied with the English and the Dutch against the Spanish. When the Spanish treasury ran out of money, negations began. On the 30th of April in 1598, Henry issued the Edict of Nantes, which guaranteed limited toleration to the French Protestant communities. Two days later, peace was made and all Spanish troops were withdrawn from French and Dutch territories. Henry's recovery program for France was bold and imaginative, but it worked. When Henry IV died in 1610, France was in a great condition. Swampland was drained to make room for agricultural areas and tree-lined roads, bridges, and canals were built, and the Louvre was extended. Henry wisely tried to subsidize land rather than wage war, but found himself at the brink of war with the Holy Roman Empire. While riding to meet his armies on May 14th of 1610, François Ravaillac, a fanatical anti-Huguenot, rejected by the Jesuits, stabbed Henry to death. When he was tortured, Ravaillac said that he worked alone to stop Henry from declaring war on the Pope, but no one will know if he really worked alone or not. If Henry had lived longer, war would have been made, but France might have gone into a golden age as well.

#17- Benigno Aquino

Benigno Aquino (1932-1983) was a Filipino who came from the family with a grandfather who had been a general in the Filipino revolutionary army that fought against Spain, and a father prominent official in the government assembled after the fall of Japanese forces in 1941. Nicknamed 'Ninoy', Aquino became a journalist, and used his family name and media contacts to enter politics in the Philippines. When he was only 21 years old, he became a close adviser to Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay, and by 1955, he had become the mayor of Concepción. Six years later, Aquino was appointed as the governor of the province of Tarlac. When he was 34, in 1967, Aquino became the youngest elected senator in the country's history. As he rose through the ranks, Aquino became an opponent of Ferdinand Marcos, President of the Philippines. Aquino opposed Marcos's movement towards dictatorship, and also angered the president by attacking the extravagant and ambitious First Lady, Imelda Marcos. In 1971, when leaders of Aquino's Liberal Part were speaking, government agents bombed the public platform, yet none of the bombers were tried. On September 21nd of the next year, Marcos declared martial law, and had Aquino and other opposing politicians arrested. Aquino was sentenced to death by firing squad, but the sentence was never carried out. During his time in prison, where he suffered two heart attacks. On May 8th, 1980, Imelda Marcos went to Aquino's cell and offered him immediate evacuation to the United States if Aquino agreed not to attack the Marcos regime while abroad. Aquino quickly agreed, and went to the United States with his whole family. After making his way to the United States, Aquino underwent a heart operation and soon recovered. After recovering, Aquino renounced his pact with the Marcoses and he criticized the Marcos regime from his home in Boston. While he did this, the Filipino government tried to frame Aquino for a series of bombings in 1981. In early 1983, Aquino learned of the deteriorating political situation and the declining health of Marcos, and decided to return to the Philippines. Filipino consular officials in the United States were ordered not to issue any passports to the Aquino family, and Marcos's government warned all international airlines that they would be denied landing rights if they tried to fly the Aquinos to the Philippines. To keep his return secret, Aquino flew from Boston to Los Angeles, to Singapore, to Hong Kong, to Taipei, then to the Philippines, but his plan had already been discovered, and an assassin was already on his plane to Manila. Unfortunately, Aquino was unable to step back on his homeland one last time, for Aquino was shot in the back of the head as he descended the steps of the plane. Although investigators claimed that Rolando Galman, a man shot dead by airport security, had shot Aquino, one passenger claimed a man in uniform shot the man, but no one knows for certain. Many assumed that the assassination was engineered by Imelda Marcos, because Ferdinand Marcos was reportedly gravely ill, but whoever shot Aquino, his legacy lives on. Aquino's wife, Cory Aquino, later became president of the Philippines, and Benigno 'Noynoy' Aquino Jr. has recently been elected as the next president of the Philippines.

#18- Reinhard Heydrich

Out of all the Nazis, Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) was at the top of the Nazi heap. Along with being a senior SS officer and being considered as a possible successor of Hitler, Heydrich was the head of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RHSA), the Reich Security Head Office, but Heydrich was most important for attending the Wannsee Conference of 1942, where Nazis agreed plans for the extermination of the European Jews. Heydrich started out in a good childhood, being able to play violin and many sports, but his prospects went down when he was dismissed from the German Navy in 1931 for unknown reasons. Many believe that Heydrich was dismissed for spying on naval personnel for the Nazis. This idea was strengthened by the fact that soon after the event, SS Leader Heinrich Himmler appointed Heydrich to expand the SD (Sicherheitsdienst) soon afterwards. After 1932, Heydrich started hopping up the Nazi hierarchy. Having done well in recruiting people to the SD, he was given control of the Gestapo, or the Geheime Staatspoliziei, in 1934. The Gestapo was the civil secret police. Two years later, the Gestapo was merged with the criminal-investigation police into the SiPo (Sicherheitspolizei, or Security Police) under Heydrich. After becoming the head of the RHSA in 1939, he ran both the SD and the SiPo. Heydrich was cruel, competitive, and aggresive, which led to Himmler giving him the nichname 'Genghis Khan'. It was Heydrich who planned the ruse if a Polish attack on German forces at Gleiwitz that later led to the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939. In November of 1938, Heydrich was made the head of the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, which he used to assert SS dominance over Jewish Policy, which culminated at the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, where the 'Final Solution' of the Jewish people was sealed. In September of 1941, Heydrich became the Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia. This post was important to the Nazi war effort, because many of Germany's guns and tanks came from that area of Europe. Heydrich understood this, and held strict rules for those who did not reach their daily quota and those who took part in any resistance. Heydrich's success led Hitler to consider promoting Heydrich to the position of governor of Paris. This news led British inteligence to protect the French Resistance network from Heydrich's ruthless ministrations. In December of 1941, the British sent Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik, two Czechs who had fled their country in 1941, to Czechoslovakia to assassinate Heydrich. Heydrich was known for his display of riding in an open car. On May 27, 1942, Kubis and Gabcik used this habit to their advantage. When Heydrich's car was turning a bend in the suburbs of Prague, Gabcik pulled out a Sten 9mm submachine-gun, but the magazine jammed, and would not work, so Kubis threw an anti-tank grenade at the car in desperation, which exploded on the car's boot, but also in Kubis's face. Heydrich, at the time, appeared to be only lightly hurt, for he was able to jump out of the car and chase after the two assassins, but his gun, also, was not loaded. After a while, the shock of the wounds set in and Heydrich had to send his driver after the assassins instead of himself. Although Himmler sent Heydrich his best doctors, Heydrich's horsehair upholstery had allowed bacteria and toxins to give Heydrich septicaemia, and he died on June 4th of 1942. Two weeks later, Gabcik and Kubis were cornered by German troops in the church of St. Cyril and St. Methodius in Prague. After the two realized that the Germans would overrun the church, the two went into the crypt and committed suicide. Heydrich might have been governor of Paris had he lived a few years longer, and he might have uncovered the French Resistance while there, but he did not survive, helping the allies along with their fight.

Information from...
ASSASSINATED!
By Steven Parissien