<i><b><font color="red"> CLEOPATRA COMMITS SUICIDE:</b></font color></i><br><img src="http://www.thehistorychannel.com/tdih/images/tdih/0830tdih.gif">August 30, 30 B.C. Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome. Cleopatra, born in 69 B.C., was made Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt, upon the death of her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 B.C. Her brother was made King Ptolemy XIII at the same time, and the siblings ruled Egypt under the formal title of husband and wife. Cleopatra and Ptolemy were members of the Macedonian dynasty that governed Egypt since the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Although Cleopatra had no Egyptian blood, she alone in her ruling house learned Egyptian. To further her influence over the Egyptian people, she was also proclaimed the daughter of Re, the Egyptian sun god. Cleopatra soon fell into dispute with her brother, and civil war erupted in 48 B.C. Rome, the greatest power in the Western world, was also beset by civil war at the time. Just as Cleopatra was preparing to attack her brother with a large Arab army, the Roman civil war spilled into Egypt. Pompey the Great, defeated by Julius Caesar in Greece, fled to Egypt seeking solace but was immediately murdered by agents of Ptolemy XIII. Caesar arrived in Alexandria soon after and, finding his enemy dead, decided to restore order in Egypt. During the preceding century, Rome had exercised increasing control over the rich Egyptian kingdom, and Cleopatra sought to advance her political aims by winning the favor of Caesar. She traveled to the royal palace in Alexandria and was allegedly carried to Caesar rolled in a rug, which was offered as a gift. Cleopatra, beautiful and alluring, captivated the powerful Roman leader, and he agreed to intercede in the Egyptian civil war on her behalf. In 47 B.C., Ptolemy XIII was killed after a defeat against Caesar's forces, and Cleopatra was made dual ruler with another brother, Ptolemy XIV. Julius and Cleopatra spent several amorous weeks together, and then Caesar departed for Asia Minor, where he declared "Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered), after putting down a rebellion. In June 47 B.C., Cleopatra bore a son, whom she claimed was Caesar's and named Caesarion, meaning "little Caesar." Upon Caesar's triumphant return to Rome, Cleopatra and Caesarion joined him there. Under the auspices of negotiating a treaty with Rome, Cleopatra lived discretely in a villa that Caesar owned outside the capital. After Caesar was assassinated in March 44 B.C., she returned to Egypt. Soon after, Ptolemy XIV died, likely poisoned by Cleopatra, and the queen made her son co-ruler with her as Ptolemy XV Caesar. With Julius Caesar's murder, Rome again fell into civil war, which was temporarily resolved in 43 B.C. with the formation of the second triumvirate, made up of Octavian, Caesar's great-nephew and chosen heir; Mark Antony, a powerful general; and Lepidus, a Roman statesman. Antony took up the administration of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and he summoned Cleopatra to Tarsus, in Asia Minor, to answer charges that she had aided his enemies. Cleopatra sought to seduce Antony, as she had Caesar before him, and in 41 B.C. arrived in Tarsus on a magnificent river barge, dressed as Venus, the Roman god of love. Successful in her efforts, Antony returned with her to Alexandria, where they spent the winter in debauchery. In 40 B.C., Antony returned to Rome and married Octavian's sister Octavia in an effort to mend his strained alliance with Octavian. The triumvirate, however, continued to deteriorate. In 37 B.C., Antony separated from Octavia and traveled east, arranging for Cleopatra to join him in Syria. In their time apart, Cleopatra had borne him twins, a son and a daughter. According to Octavian's propagandists, the lovers were then married, which violated the Roman law restricting Romans from marrying foreigners. Antony's disastrous military campaign against Parthia in 36 B.C. further reduced his prestige, but in 34 B.C. he was more successful against Armenia. To celebrate the victory, he staged a triumphal procession through the streets of Alexandria, in which he and Cleopatra sat on golden thrones, and Caesarion and their children were given imposing royal titles. Many in Rome, spurred on by Octavian, interpreted the spectacle as a sign that Antony intended to deliver the Roman Empire into alien hands. After several more years of tension and propaganda attacks, Octavian declared war against Cleopatra, and therefore Antony, in 31 B.C. Enemies of Octavian rallied to Antony's side, but Octavian's brilliant military commanders gained early successes against his forces. On September 2, 31 B.C., their fleets clashed at Actium in Greece. After heavy fighting, Cleopatra broke from the engagement and set course for Egypt with 60 of her ships. Antony then broke through the enemy line and followed her. The disheartened fleet that remained surrendered to Octavian. One week later, Antony's land forces surrendered. Although they had suffered a decisive defeat, it was nearly a year before Octavian reached Alexandria and again defeated Antony. In the aftermath of the battle, Cleopatra took refuge in the mausoleum she had commissioned for herself. Antony, informed that Cleopatra was dead, stabbed himself with his sword. Before he died, another messenger arrived, saying Cleopatra still lived. Antony had himself carried to Cleopatra's retreat, where he died after bidding her to make her peace with Octavian. When the triumphant Roman arrived, she attempted to seduce him, but he resisted her charms. Rather than fall under Octavian's domination, Cleopatra committed suicide on August 30, 30 B.C., possibly by means of an asp, a poisonous Egyptian serpent and symbol of divine royalty. Octavian then executed her son Caesarion, annexed Egypt into the Roman Empire, and used Cleopatra's treasure to pay off his veterans. In 27 B.C., Octavian became Augustus, the first and arguably most successful of all Roman emperors. He ruled a peaceful, prosperous, and expanding Roman Empire until his death in 14 A.D. at the age of 75.
"For it is the doom of man that he shall forget... (Merlin) EVEN MORE HISTORY. <I><B>August 30th, 1918 Vladimir Lenin shot</B></I> After speaking at a factory in Moscow, Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin is shot twice by Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Social Revolutionary party. Lenin was seriously wounded but survived the attack. The assassination attempt set off a wave of reprisals by the Bolsheviks against the Social Revolutionaries and other political opponents. Thousands were executed as Russia fell deeper into civil war. Born Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov in 1870, Lenin was drawn to the revolutionary cause after his brother was executed in 1887 for plotting to assassinate Czar Alexander III. He studied law and took up practice in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), where he associated with revolutionary Marxist circles. In 1895, he helped organize Marxist groups in the capital into the "Union for the Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class," which attempted to enlist workers to the Marxist cause. In December 1895, Lenin and the other leaders of the Union were arrested. Lenin was jailed for a year and then exiled to Siberia for a term of three years. After the end of his exile, in 1900, Lenin went to Western Europe, where he continued his revolutionary activity. It was during this time that he adopted the pseudonym Lenin. In 1902, he published a pamphlet titled What Is to Be Done? which argued that only a disciplined party of professional revolutionaries could bring socialism to Russia. In 1903, he met with other Russian Marxists in London and established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party (RSDWP). However, from the start there was a split between Lenin's Bolsheviks (Majoritarians), who advocated militarism, and the Mensheviks (Minoritarians), who advocated a democratic movement toward socialism. These two groups increasingly opposed each other within the framework of the RSDWP, and Lenin made the split official at a 1912 conference of the Bolshevik Party. After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, Lenin returned to Russia. The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile. Lenin opposed World War I, which began in 1914, as an imperialistic conflict and called on proletariat soldiers to turn their guns on the capitalist leaders who sent them down into the murderous trenches. For Russia, World War I was an unprecedented disaster: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and in March 1917 riots and strikes broke out in Petrograd over the scarcity of food. Demoralized army troops joined the strikers, and on March 15 Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending centuries of czarist rule. In the aftermath of the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia's use of the Julian calendar), power was shared between the ineffectual Provincial Government and the soviets, or "councils," of soldiers' and workers' committees. After the outbreak of the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin and his lieutenants to cross Germany en route from Switzerland to Sweden in a sealed railway car. Berlin hoped (correctly) that the return of the anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort, which was continuing under the Provincial Government. Lenin called for the overthrow of the Provincial Government by the soviets, and he was condemned as a "German agent" by the government's leaders. In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for "peace, land, and bread" met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7 the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world's first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry, and distributed land but beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces. In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin's death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union. <font color="blue"><b><i>August 30, 1983 First African American in space</b> (short Howard comment: this is my most favored event on this date in history) </i> <u>U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford</font color> becomes the first African American to travel into space when the space shuttle Challenger lifts off on its third mission.</u> It was the first night launch of a space shuttle, and many people stayed up late to watch the spacecraft roar up from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:32 a.m. The Challenger spent six days in space, during which time Bluford and his four fellow crew members launched a communications satellite for the government of India, made contact with an errant communications satellite, conducted scientific experiments, and tested the shuttle's robotic arm. Just before dawn on September 5, the shuttle landed at Edwards Air Force Base in California, bringing an end to the most flawless shuttle mission to that date. Guion Stewart Bluford II was born in Philadelphia in 1942. From an early age, "Guy" was fascinated with flight and decided he wanted to design and build airplanes. In 1964, he graduated from Penn State with a degree in aerospace engineering. Deciding he'd need to know how to fly planes if he wanted to build them, he entered the U.S. Air Force and graduated with his pilot wings in 1965. He was assigned to a fighter squadron in Vietnam, where he flew 144 combat missions. After combat service, he became a flight instructor and in the 1970s went on to receive a master's degree and doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. In 1979, he was accepted into the U.S. astronaut program. He made his first flight in 1983 as a mission specialist on the eighth shuttle mission. He later flew three more shuttle missions, logging a total of 700 miles in orbit. After returning from NASA, he became vice president and general manager of an engineering company in Ohio.<p> <font color="blue">Another Howard comment:<i><b>"An obvious ancestor of Capt. Geordi La Forge.</font color></b></i> Levar Burton was on larry king live the other night. An extremely impressive man, he is. I truly wish that he could have taken the role of Capt. of the Enterprise (upcoming in Sept.2001). I cannot find enough nice things to say (though I will try to in days to come) about Mr. Levar Burton. Mr. Burton stands alone as a very intelligent and respected individual. He's got my vote as Captain of the Enterprise if Scotty Backula/dracula ever falls prey to an Andorian herpes virus (space herpes(ice pirates(Robert Urlrich))))......Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Famous birthdays for August 30. <b>Birthday Board: August 30 </b> 1827 - Ellen Arthur (Herndon) (First Lady: married to U.S. 21st President Chester A. Arthur) 1870 - Maria Montessori (educator: The Montessori School) 1896 - Raymond Massey (The President's Plane is Missing, McKenna's Gold, How the West was Won. The Great Impostor, Battle Cry, The Naked and the Dead, East of Eden, Abe Lincoln in Illinois, Dr. Kildare) 1901 - E. Fritz Loosti (skier) 1901 - Roy Wilkins (civil rights leader: Executive Director of NAACP) 1907 - Shirley Booth (Thelma Booth Ford) (Academy Award-winning actress: Come Back Little Sheba [1952]; Hot Spell, The Matchmaker; Emmy Award-winner [1962]: Hazel; A Touch of Grace) 1908 - Fred MacMurray (actor: My Three Sons, The Caine Mutiny, Egg and I, Above Suspicion, The Apartment, The Happiest Millionaire, The Shaggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, The Miracle of the Bells) 1912 - Joan Blondell (actress: The Baron, The Champ, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Public Enemy) 1914 - Julie Bishop (Wells) (actress: Westward the Women, Rhapsody in Blue, My Hero) 1918 - Ted Williams (Baseball Hall of Famer: Boston Red Sox outfielder: Baseball Writers' Award [1946 & 1949]) 1918 - Kitty Wells (Muriel Deason) ('The Queen of Country Music': (Country Music Hall of Famer: Jealousy, It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels, I Don't Want Your Money, I Want Your Time, Payin' for that Back Street Affair, Makin' Believe, Searching, Heartbreak U.S.A., We'll Stick Together w/husband, Johnny Wright) 1922 - Regina Resnik (mezzo-soprano: songs from Kismet) 1923 - Vic Seixas (tennis champion: Wimbledon [1953]; U.S. Open [1954]) 1927 - Geoffrey Beene (fashion designer) 1931 - John Swigert, Jr. (NASA astronaut) 1935 - John Phillips (singer: group: The Mamas & The Papas: Monday Monday, California Dreamin', Creeque Alley; songwriter: California Dreamin', San Francisco [Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair]; actress, MacKenzie Phillips' father) 1939 - Elizabeth Ashley (Cole) (actress: The Carpetbaggers, Ship of Fools, Stagecoach, Paperback Hero, Dangerous Curves, Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday, Evening Shade) 1941 - John McNally (singer, musician: guitar: The Searchers: Needles and Pins, Love Potion Number 9) 1942 - Coy (Lander McCoy) Bacon (football) 1943 - Jean-Claude Killy (Olympic Gold Medal skier [3]: downhill, slalom and giant slalom [1968]) 1944 - Tug (Frank) McGraw (baseball: Philadelphia Phillies/NY Mets pitcher: played in the World Series for both teams; record [15] for most games pitched [1969, 1973]) 1947 - Billy Keller (basketball) 1947 - Peggy Lipton (actress: Twin Peaks, The Mod Squad) 1947 - Jon Paul Kolb (football: Pittsburgh Steelers tackle: Super Bowl: IX, X, XIII, XIV) 1951 - Timothy Bottoms (actor: Last Picture Show, The Paper Chase, The Other Side of the Mountain Part II, Texasville, East of Eden)
Tart Choppers...err..???....Chart toppers!! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <i><b>Chart Toppers: August 30 </B></i> 1957 Teddy Bear - Elvis Presley Whispering Bells - The Dell-Vikings Stardust - Billy Ward and His Dominoes White Silver Sands - Don Rondo 1965 I Got You Babe - Sonny and Cher Help! - The Beatles Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan Save Your Heart for Me - Gary Lewis and The Playboys 1973 Brother Louie - Stories Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye Delta Dawn - Helen Reddy Everybody's Had the Blues - Merle Haggard and The Strangers 1981 Endless Love - Diana Ross and The Supremes Slow Hand - Pointer Sisters Urgent - Foreigner (There's) No Gettin' Over Me - Ronnie Milsap
Howard 'Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!' I love history, but that's why we have The History Channel. When I read I like horror/sci fi.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Let me guess......... You bought the chute from DB Cooper....... right????Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
