posted 06-29-99 07:07 AM ET     

My age is:
110001 computer years
61 --- Octopus years
49 --- people years
41 --- alien years (the ones with six fingers per hand)

posted 06-29-99 07:33 AM ET            

appy girthday to you,
appy girthday to you,
appy girthday ear OhWell
appy girthday to you

posted 06-29-99 12:13 PM ET            

So, are you gonna blow out those candles or not?

posted 06-29-99 01:14 PM ET         

RC, Sorry no candles this year... Couldn’t get a permit from the EPA!

posted 06-29-99 01:47 PM ET            

1916 British Diplomat Convicted of Treason

Sir Roger David Casement, the Irish-born diplomat who in 1911 was knighted by King George V, was convicted of treason for his role in Ireland's Easter Rebellion, and sentenced to death. Casement, an Irish Protestant who served as a British diplomat during the early part of the twentieth century, won international acclaim after exposing the illegal practice of slavery in the Congo and parts of South America. Despite his Ulster Protestant roots, he became an ardent supporter of the Irish independence movement, and after the outbreak of World War I, traveled to the United States and then to Germany to secure aid for an Irish uprising against the British. Germany, which was at war with Great Britain, promised limited aid, and Casement was transported back to Ireland in a German submarine. On April 21, 1916, just a few days before the outbreak of the Easter Rebellion in Dublin, he landed in Kerry, and was picked up by British authorities almost immediately. By the end of the month, the Easter Rebellion had been suppressed, and the majority of its leaders were executed. Casement was tried separately because of his illustrious past, but nevertheless was found guilty of treason on June 29. On August 3, he was hanged in London.

1966 Vietnam Air War Escalates

During the Vietnam War, U.S. aircraft bombed the major North Vietnamese population centers of Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time, destroying oil depots located near the two cities. The U.S. military hoped that by bombing Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and Haiphong, North Vietnam's largest port, Communist forces would be deprived of essential military supplies and thus the ability to wage war. In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against Communist forces. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited-bombing raids on North Vietnam and Congress authorized the use of U.S. troops. By 1965, Vietcong and North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to over 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history. However, as the Vietcong were able to fight with an average flow of only twenty tons of supplies from North Vietnam, and U.S. forces in Vietnam required one thousand times as much, the bombing of Communist industry and supply routes had little impact on the course of the war. Nevertheless, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh placed the destruction of U.S. bombers in the forefront of his war effort, and by 1969, over 5,000 American planes had been lost. In addition, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai had turned many in the United States against the Vietnam War. In 1970, President Richard M. Nixon began withdrawing U.S. troops, but intensified bombing across Indochina in an effort to salvage the embattled war effort. Large U.S. troop withdrawals continued in the early 1970s, but Nixon expanded air and ground operations into Cambodia and Laos in attempts to block enemy supply routes along Vietnam's borders. This expansion of the war, which accomplished few positive results, led to new waves of protests in the United States and elsewhere. Finally, in 1973, representatives of the United States, North and South Vietnam, and the Vietcong signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. By the end of 1973, the U.S. contingent in Vietnam had shrunk to only fifty military advisors. On April 30, 1975, the last of these and other Americans were airlifted out of Vietnam as Communist forces launched their final triumphant offensive into South Vietnam. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history, and cost fifty-eight thousand American lives.

1972 Supreme Court Strikes Down Death Penalty

In Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled by a vote of five to four that capital punishment, as it was currently employed on the state and federal level, was unconstitutional. The majority held that, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, the death penalty qualified as "cruel and unusual punishment" primarily because states employed execution in "arbitrary and capricious ways," especially in regard to race. It was the first time that the nation's highest court had ruled against capital punishment. However, because the Supreme Court suggested new legislation that could make death sentences constitutional again, such as the development of standardized guidelines for sentencing juries, it was not an outright victory for opponents of the death penalty. In 1976, with 66 percent of Americans still supporting capital punishment, the Supreme Court acknowledged progress made in jury guidelines, and reinstated the death penalty under a "model of guided discretion." In 1977, Gary Gilmore, a career criminal who had murdered an elderly couple because they would not lend him their car, was the first person to be executed since the end of the ban. Defiantly facing a firing squad in Utah, Gilmore's last words to his executioners before they shot him through the heart were "Let's do it."

1974 Isabel Peron Takes Office as Argentine President

With Argentine President Juan Peron on his deathbed, Isabela Martinez de Peron, his wife and vice president, was sworn in as the leader of the South American country. President Isabel Peron, a former dancer and Peron's second wife, was the Western Hemisphere's first female head of government. Two days later, Juan died from heart disease, and Isabel was left alone as leader of a nation suffering from serious economic and political strife. Juan Domingo Peron was first elected president of Argentina in 1946, thanks in part to the efforts of his charismatic first wife, Eva Duarte de Peron. After becoming president, Peron constructed an impressive populist alliance that included workers, the military, nationalists, clerics, and industrialists. Peron's vision of self-sufficiency for his country won wide support from the Argentine people, but over the next decade he became increasingly authoritarian, jailing political opponents, restricting freedom of the press, and organizing trade unions into militant groups along Fascist lines. In 1952, the president's greatest political resource, "Evita" Peron, died, and his unusual social coalition collapsed, leading to a military coup in 1955 that forced him to flee the country. However, his economic reforms remained popular with the majority of Argentineans long after his departure, and in 1973 he returned triumphantly to Argentina, called back by the military to end factional violence. Peron subsequently won another major electoral victory, and his second wife, "Isabelita" Peron, was elected as vice president. After his sudden illness and death in the following year, his wife assumed the presidency. President Isabel Peron was unable to command the support of any powerful group, let alone construct a necessary coalition, and the political and economic situation in Argentina worsened. On March 24, 1976, following a sharp rise in political terrorism and guerrilla activity, the military deposed Peron, and instituted one of the bloodiest regimes in South American history. Isabel Peron was imprisoned for five years on a charge of abuse of property, and upon her release in 1981 settled in Madrid.

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Birthday Board: June 29

1858 - George Washington Goethals (engineer: see "Goethals" Day above)
1901 - Nelson Eddy (actor, singer w/Jeannette MacDonald: Rose Marie, Naughty Marietta, Girl of the Golden West)

1910 - Frank Loesser (songwriter: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition, Baby It's Cold Outside, On a Slow Boat to China, Once in Love with Amy, Luck Be a Lady, Thumbelina)

1912 - John Toland (Pulitzer Prize-winning author: The Rising Sun [1970])

1915 - Ruth Warrick (actress: Citizen Kane, All My Children)

1919 - Slim Pickens (Louis Lindley) (actor: Dr. Strangelove, The Howling, The Apple Dumpling Gang, In Harms Way, One-Eyed Jacks, The Outlaws, Hee Haw; Cowboy Hall of Famer)

1922 - Mousey Alexander (musician: drums)

1922 - Ralph Burns (musician: piano; composer, arranger: Apple Honey)

1925 - Cara Williams (actress: The Defiant Ones, The Girl Next Door, Pete and Gladys)

1930 - Robert Evans (actor: The Man of a Thousand Faces, The Best of Everything)

1936 - Harmon Killebrew (baseball: Minnesota Twins: Baseball Writers' Award [1969])

1941 - Stokeley Carmichael (Kwame Toure) (civil rights activist)

1943 - Gary Busey (actor: The Buddy Holly Story, Breaking Point, The Texas Wheelers, Warriors, Lethal Weapon, The Firm, Predator 2)

1945 - 'Little' Eva Boyd (singer: The Loco-motion)

1947 - Larry Pleau (hockey)

1947 - Richard Lewis (comedian, actor: Anything But Love, Daddy Dearest, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Wagon's East)

1948 - Fred Grandy (actor: The Love Boat; politician: U.S. congressman)

1948 - Rick Smith (hockey)

1948 - Benny Johnson (football)

1949 - Dan Dierdorf (football: Chicago Bears; sportscaster: Monday Night Football)

1962 - Amanda Donohoe (actress: The Substitute, Double Cross, L.A. Law)

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Chart Toppers: June 29

1955
Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets
Honey-Babe - Art Mooney

Whatever Lola Wants - Sarah Vaughn

Ballad of Davy Crockett - Tennessee Ernie Ford

1963
Sukiyaki - Kyu Sakamoto
Hello Stranger - Barbara Lewis

Surf City - Jan and Dean

Still - Bill Anderson

1971
It's Too Late/I Feel the Earth Move - Carole King
Brown Sugar - The Rolling Stones

Don't Pull Your Love - Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds

Bright Lights, Big City - Sonny James

1979
Hot Stuff - Donna Summer
We Are Family - Sister Sledge

The Logical Song - Supertramp

Nobody Likes Sad Songs - Ronnie Milsap

Special thanks to 440 International Inc.

And of course, a birthday card-

HAPPY BIRTHDAY OHWELL

posted 06-29-99 02:17 PM ET            

With a nice ice cream sundea for dessert.

I've got too much free time on my hands, hehe.

posted 06-29-99 05:57 PM ET            

Happy birthday!

posted 06-29-99 07:01 PM ET            

(It basically means happy birthday)