En Marcha: Inter-imperialist Contention – China vs the United States

En Marcha # 2038 from March 1 to 7, 2023

Central Organ of the PCMLE  

Inter-imperialist Contention: China vs the United States  

One of the present characteristics of the international situation is the confrontation between the United States and China. Both imperialist states are struggling for domination of the global economy and the control of territories and markets.  

There is no doubt that the strengthening and growth of the Chinese economy in the last forty years has turned this imperialist power into a contender for the United States, which has received strong economic blows and military setbacks in recent decades.  

Beijing and Washington have been the main actors in several confrontational events that presently affect the chessboard of world geopolitics. The following is a summary of the main confrontations between these two imperialist powers.  

Trade War  

Donald Trump took a series of measures in the sphere of trade, imposing punishments on Chinese companies. Biden continued the restrictive measures against these companies and the pressure on his allies to block the expansion of Huawei and other companies from that country in the laying of 5G networks, which adds to the reduction of imports. In this context is the blocking of the social network Tik Tok on the phones and tablets of officials of 19 states of the United States and of members of the House of Representatives.  

The United States strategy has used the application of tariff rates; strict controls on Chinese investments; controls on high-tech U.S. exports, and regulations on acquisitions of U.S. assets. Tariff restrictions have lost support within the U.S., both because of the higher costs in production, and because of the tariff restrictions faced by several sectors of exporters to the Beijing market, but the other measures and their aggravation have support in the legislature.  

South China Sea conflict  

There have been several conflicts in the South China Sea in which the US and Chinese navy are involved.  

The Asian giant claims sovereignty over parts of this sea, which has led to a dispute with the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam. In this conflict, the U.S. has given itself the role of defending the free movement of ships in the area. Half of the world's commercial transit passes through this corridor, as well as most of the oil consumed by Asian countries, so whoever controls this sea route controls a strategic line of the world trade in hydrocarbons.  

Taiwan conflict  

On September 14, 2022, the US legislature approved a law that strengthens relations with Taiwan, ignoring the one-China policy that was adopted by Washington in 1978. To that is added, the visit to that island by Nancy Pelosi, chair of the House of Representatives of the United States. Recall that already in May of that year President Biden stated that the US would intervene "militarily" in case China invaded Taiwan.  

Among the latest tensions that have increased in the strait of the Formosa Sea is the increase in the number of incursions by Chinese aircraft in the self-declared air identification zone (ADIZ) of Taiwan and the statements by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, admitting that the United States has a military presence on the island.  

Ukrainian War  

China made public an announcement of a peace plan for Ukraine. On February 24, 2023, he put on the table a plan that in general terms calls for respect for territorial integrity, for the end of international sanctions against Russia and proposes a ceasefire, among other measures. For their part, the United States and its European allies have stated that they do not trust the document; "Putin is applauding it, so how could it be good?" said US president Joe Biden when asked about the Chinese peace plan on ABC News. The confrontation of the powers is not reduced to press statements; the US Department of Commerce added five Chinese companies to its blacklist because they "contribute significantly to Russia's military or defense industrial base."  

Latin America and indebtedness  

China grants loans without the traditional demands posed by multilaterals, which has caused several countries to take these credit programs, which the Asian country has used to invest in the Latin American region that for the United States was considered its backyard.  

Asian investments in this region have been mainly directed to energy, infrastructure and mining. China was among the main investors in Latin America and the Caribbean in regard to mergers and acquisitions.  

The relationship between the United States and China being conflictive is complementary, both powers have investments in their counterparts; for example, at the beginning of this year it was estimated that the Asian country has about US $870 billion in US debt.  

The contention for control of the world economy goes hand in hand with the contention for the influence of territories. Trade confrontations and localized conflicts are drawing a panorama of confrontation between these two imperialist powers, which will harm the peoples and workers of the world. 

En Marcha: Imperialist states reaffirm their warmongering spirit

En Marcha # 2038 from March 1 to 7, 2023

Central Organ of the PCMLE  

Imperialist states reaffirm their warmongering spirit  

A year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which gave rise to the outbreak of an inter-imperialist war in which the United States and its Western allies in the European Union and NATO, on the one hand, and Russian imperialism on the other, are confronted, the possibilities of a forthcoming solution to the conflict are not seen. All analysts point out that it has been a war that has lasted longer than expected and the effects of it also exceed forecasts.  

Since Ukraine is the territory on which the war is taking place, the workers and peoples of that country are its main victims. There are thousands of dead and injured, hundreds of thousands of victims and more than five and a half million refugees in different countries, mainly in Europe.  

But the workers and peoples of other countries are also victims of the war. The US and its Western allies imposed a series of economic sanctions and trade bans on Russia that, in a short time, had negative effects on their own countries, beyond the serious impact against those to whom they were addressed. The energy crisis has increased, the price of fuel rose, inflationary indices have increased, causing – in fact – a decrease in workers' wages; the rate of growth of the economy decreased, budgets were cut to feed military spending. In short, the workers are bearing the effects of war on their backs, but they are not bearing them passively. Europe has also become the scene of massive protest actions by workers and youth against the crisis, the reduction of wages, against the policies of governments to reform ["cut back"] pension and health systems; They are mobilizations in which, at the same time, war is condemned and peace is demanded.  

On the first anniversary of this war, all those involved have taken advantage of the date to reaffirm their warmongering spirit. On both sides new threats have emerged, announcements of more billions in "aid" from the West to Ukraine; Russia, for its part, made it known that it is suspending its participation in the nuclear arms control treaty.  

China – Russia's ally, although it tries to hide that situation in this conflict – tried to use the opportunity to jump on the scene with a "peace plan to end the armed conflict", which was rejected by both sides. It could be seen that the plan would fail, since it was a proposal in which rhetoric prevailed. Putin has said that "the premises are not right for a cessation of hostilities", and that he has not fulfilled what, at least officially, he said he proposed when he launched his troops against Ukraine. The US and Zelensky are assessing the situation in the same way, but from the other side: they cannot end the conflict with troops on top, which closes the door to their desire since before the war to make Ukraine another NATO enclave.  

The banners of peace are not being raised by warmongers, but by the peoples. It is the workers of the world who are condemning this imperialist war, condemning both imperialist sides alike and demanding its immediate end.  

February issue of Towards ML Unity published

The next issue of Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity has been published and will be posted at:  redstarpublishers.org/TMLU.htm  (see also for TMLU's contact information and how to order print copies).  Content for the April issue should be sent during March; comments and criticism of the contents are also welcome.

Contents:

Stop Police Murders!  

Shock and anger after fired worker killed by police at Oklahoma pork plant  

A Brief Summary of Recent Strikes in the U.S.  

What Does a Multipolar World Mean, and Does It Benefit the Workers and Peoples?  

The Developments of the War on the Working Class  

How the War Machine ‘Recruits’ Poor, Oppressed Youth  

Antiwar Activist Faces Repression in Germany  

Happy Lunar New Year  

Let Them Die!  

US Life Expectancy Falls to Lowest Levels Since 1996  

Why Does the United States Treat Us as a Colony  

World Hunger Is Growing: Capitalism Is To Blame  

The Decline of the U.S. Economy  

Sección en español  

¿Porque Estados Unidos nos trata como colonia? 

Crece el hambre en el mundo: la culpa es del capitalismo  

La declinación de la economía de EE.UU.  

ICMLPO: Let us stand in solidarity with the people of Turkey and Syria facing the earthquake disaster...

Our call to the working class and peoples of the world:

Let us stand in solidarity with the people of Turkey and Syria facing the earthquake disaster...

In the early hours of 6 February, a major earthquake struck ten provinces in south-eastern Turkey and even in Syria. More than ten thousand buildings were destroyed or damaged and tens of thousands of people were trapped under the collapsed buildings. The death toll from the rubble now exceeds thirteen thousand. Unfortunately, this number will increase in the coming days, as not even five per cent of the rubble has been removed.

It has been seen that the one-man administration at the head Erdogan, which only seeks to maintain its power, has done nothing to prepare for the earthquake. Almost half of Turkey is an earthquake zone and scientists have been warning the government for a long time about the possibility of an earthquake in the region where the disaster occurred today. Roads leading to the earthquake zone were closed due to snow and traffic congestion. On the third day, sufficient rescue teams and vehicles had still not reached the region. In many city and towns and particularly villages where no rescue team reached, the earthquake victims were completely alone with their fate. Some areas were snowy, others rainy and the temperature was below zero. On the third day of the earthquake, survivors are still deprived of shelter and warmth and are hungry and thirsty with no food. Telephones work intermittently or not at all.

Due to the time and weather conditions, the possibility of rescuing people alive from the rubble is getting weaker and weaker.

The government declared a State of Emergency in ten provinces, citing the earthquake as an excuse. However, the last State of Emergency experience has shown that the State of Emergency targets Erdogan's opponents, not the needs of the people. It will not be surprising that this time it will also work to suppress the voices of the people who are angry with the government for not receiving aid.

The people of Turkey need international solidarity and aid. The government has centralised the delivery of aid, does not allow anyone to help outside its control and is not trustworthy because of its reputation for corruption. Aid to the people must therefore be in the form of material aid and delivered to non-governmental organisations. The need for cold-resistant clothing, hygiene materials, barracks and cold-resistant tents, as well as financial aid to meet the needs of the earthquake victims.

As the Coordination Committee, we send our condolences to the working class and labouring people of Turkey for their losses, health for their wounded, and success in their work to the sister Labour Party, whose provincial buildings in Malatya and Iskenderun were destroyed and who suffered losses, and we convey our feelings of solidarity.

CİPOML Coordination Committee

8.2.2023

IWP: Stop police murders!

                                                    Stop Police Murders!  

On January 7, Tyre Nichols, a young Black worker (he worked at FedEx) in Memphis, Tennessee, was brutally beaten by 5 cops. He was beaten so badly that he died from his injuries 3 days later.  

The cops who killed Nichols were part of a special police unit called SCORPION, which was charged with patrolling “high crime” areas, a euphemism for Black and Latino working class neighborhoods. Since Memphis is almost 65% Black, such units are a threat to the majority of the people of Memphis. Although this unit was disbanded shortly after Nichols’ murder, there is nothing to prevent it from being reformed under another name. (New York’s Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop, is bringing back NYPD’s similar anti-crime unit, which had been disbanded in 2020.)  

The cops who murdered Nichols were immediately fired and charged with second degree murder and other crimes. His was obviously to try to prevent the massive demonstrations that took place all over the U.S., and all over the world, after the police murder of George Floyd.  

The murder of Nichols once again disproves the so-called “bad apples” theory, that it is only a few “bad apples” among the police that spoil the image of the rest.  

The fact that all of the 5 cops are Black in no way changes the racist nature of the U.S. capitalist system. First, police forces, at least in the South, began with the run-away slave patrols before the Civil War. And these cops, as all police in the U.S., are used to hold down working and oppressed people.  

In 2022, police in this country killed 1061 people, almost 3 per day. Of these, at least 220 were Black (this number is clearly higher, since there are 332 whose race is classified as “unknown”[ https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/ ]), over 30% of those killed whose race was classified, although Blacks are less that 15% of the population.  

Furthermore, one should remember that it was the first Black president, Barack Obama, who was the first to directly attack an African country, Libya, in 2011, leading to the brutal murder of its president, Muammar Gadhafi, the destruction of the country, and the introduction of Black slavery there.  

Lenin pointed out, in The State and Revolution, that the state consists of “special bodies of armed men” (and now armed women as well), due to the “the cleavage of society into irreconcilably antagonistic classes.” They are used, in the form of the police within the country, to oppress and repress Blacks, Latinos and other working people, not to “serve and protect.”. And in the form of the armed forces, they are here not to “serve our country,” but to help to suppress workers and liberation movements abroad. 

 

Make no mistake about it: when there is again a mass militant working-class movement in the U.S., the police (and army) will once again be called out to repress and kill workers of all nationalities, including white workers, as they did in the 1930s.  

Independent Workers Party, www.IndependentWorkersParty.org  

Some events and anniversaries in late winter – spring 2023

More items will be added in coming weeks.

This calendar is still being updated, but some items are only listed in the March 31st post.

Carrboro Town Council resolution recognizing Native Plant Month in April:  www.carrboronc.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=2386

Addressing the balloon UFOs, Nord Stream pipeline attacks, and "Western" information warfare:  newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/hide-a-little-lie

On Iraq:

www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/24/roaming-charges-85/

www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/24/the-endless-wars-2003-2023/

The Yemen War:  www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/24/congress-do-your-job-end-us-support-for-the-war-in-yemen/

To consider:  www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/24/can-another-armenian-genocide-be-stopped/

www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/28/aukus-the-australian-labor-party-and-growing-dissent/

On "Cop City:"  www.counterpunch.org/2023/03/27/beaten-bombed-and-buried-the-decade-long-persecution-of-forest-defenders/

There will be a further step towards building basically a paved road along the three miles of Bolin Creek in the 425-acre Bolin Forest at the Carrboro Town Council's March 28th meeting:  bolincreek.org/blog/key-points-about-avoiding-a-creekside-route/

I think President Biden will be in Chatham County or Durham this week [Apparently it will be today, March 28th, in Durham, [this afternoon] potentially impacting air and road traffic: www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article273630810.html ].

Contribute to the (for now?) US Firefly Atlas:  www.fireflyatlas.org

The NC Wildlife Resources Commission is seeking sightings of hellbenders, mudpuppies, and alligators, and comments on bog turtle and Southern hognose snake draft conservation plans and migratory bird seasons:  www.ncwildlife.org/Connect-With-Us/public-asked-to-report-hellbender-and-mudpuppy-sightings , www.ncwildlife.org/Learning/Species/Reptiles/Alligator#81131876-related-links , ncwildlife.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0dN0BjEGH3xUp0y , ncwildlife.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_8oYMtmbKiUGD4do , www.ncwildlife.org/Connect-With-Us/public-comment-requested-for-2023-2024-migratory-game-bird-seasons-and-two-species-conservation-plans

Late March anti-war demonstrations

www.answercoalition.org/protest_march_18_19_peace_in_ukraine_say_no_to_endless_u_s_wars  

www.codepink.org/march18

unac.notowar.net/

I don't know of any charter buses going to DC this weekend, but the NC Green Party is organizing carpools.  There will be associated protests, but none have been announced in NC.  There might be a separate anti-war protest in central North Carolina later this month, TBA, and maybe there are still some anti-war vigils.  The one in Chapel Hill would be something like 5–6pm every Friday at Village Plaza, at the corner of East Franklin and Elliot, and it only takes one person to make a vigil.  For shorter periods there were vigils on Monday evenings at the post office on Franklin Street across from UNC, on the side of 15-501 between Chapel Hill and Durham, Saturdays ~12–1pm at Brightleaf Square in Durham, and around the same time on Saturdays or Sundays in front of Crabtree [Valley] Mall in Raleigh.  There were also banner drops and occupations of Congressman David Price's offices.  [According to STN there is a monthly peace vigil at the Federal building in Raleigh - see the March 31st post.]

[UNAC:  Protest in Washington, DC calls for an end to NATO and the US proxy war in Ukraine

More than 2,500 people participated in the rally, march and teach-in on March 18 on the 20^th anniversary of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.  The Washington, DC demonstration called for an end to the US/NATO proxy war in Ukraine, which is the center of world politics today, and is ushering in a new era where the United States, the main imperialist power in the world, is seeing its economic, political and military hegemony being eroded as other alliances are taking shape to challenge the US.  This, however, is creating a dangerous situation where major nuclear powers are facing off against each other as the US and its NATO allies continually pump more weapons, money and mercenaries into Ukraine.

The protest also called for and end to US and NATO interventions around the world and demanded:

Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War!

Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!

Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!

No war with China!

End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!

Fight racism & bigotry at home!

U.S. hands off Haiti!

End AFRICOM!

End the sanctions on Syria!

 

The action was organized by a broad coalition of antiwar groups including UNAC, ANSWER, Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink, Popular Resistance, the People’s Forum and over 200 other antiwar and social justice groups.  The cooperation between the main organizing groups in building the actions was a big step forward for our movement and a model of how we can build our movement in the future.  Other UNAC groups that played a leading role in organizing the actions include the International Action Center, BAYAN USA, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Uhuru movement, Veterans For Peace, the World Beyond War, Socialist Action and more.

The main rally was held near the White House where a number of people spoke before the demonstrators took to the streets.  We marched past the Washington Post, where we spoke about propaganda that the corporate media is spreading to help build the case for more weapons, money and war in Ukraine.  On this 20^th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, we all recall the lies about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction that fueled that war and we see the same kind of lies and propaganda from the corporate media today.

From the Washington Post, we marched to the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church where a teach-in was held.  At the rally and the teach-in, a number of UNAC members spoke including UNAC coordinator Joe Lombardo and UNAC administrative committee members, Margaret Kimberley from the Black Alliance for Peace, Margaret Flowers from Popular Resistance, and Wyatt Miller from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.  Other speakers from UNAC affiliated groups including Richie Moreno from the International Actions Center, Lee Siu Hin from the China USA Solidarity Committee, Omali Yeshitela from the Uhuru movement, and Jacqueline Luqman from the Black Alliance for Peace.  Also, speaking was Ann Wright from Code Pink and Veterans For Peace, Medea Benjamin from Code Pink, and John Shipton, the brother of Julian Assange. Noam Chomsky also addressed us by video link.

In addition to the march and rally in Washington, DC, about 15 other local actions took place in areas that were too far away for people to travel to Washington.  One of the biggest took place in San Francisco where 300 people rallied, other important actions took place in Atlanta, GA, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago, Maine and in other areas.

What next?  It is important that we keep up the momentum following this successful demonstration in Washington, DC.  UNAC will be discussing with others who organized March 18 doing local and regional action in the spring. Let's get ready.

Click here for more pictures and videos of the March 18 demonstration.

The corporate media has not told us, but twice as many Ukrainians fleeing the fighting have gone to Russia than to any other country.  In Russia some Ukrainians have formed an organization called the Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine.  This organization sent a message of support to the March 18 protest in Washington, DC.  Part of that message was read at the demonstration.  The entire text can be found here.

UNAC photos and video:  nepajac.org/picvid.htm

Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine statement read at March 18th:  nepajac.org/ukmessage.htm –

Dear comrades in UNAC and other peace-supporting groups who initiated the event of March 18!

The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine endorses your brave effort for peace in Ukraine!

Recently, we have formed a news agency under the name “M.A.R.T. Corp.” to reflect our position from Ukraine and Russia to progressive forces abroad.

The news agency M.A.R.T. Corp. expresses an independent view from the broad circles of the Ukrainian people who are opposed to the Kiev authorities. We wholeheartedly welcome and support the launch of a major campaign by the public of the United States and other countries for peace in Ukraine, in particular, the event of March 18.

For our part, we are looking for opportunities to express the opinion of Ukrainian citizens in support of the movement for peace in Western countries and ask them to voice the following points of our views at your event:

The Kiev regime uses chemical weapons in the conflict zone in Ukraine, in violation of all existing conventions on the prohibition of chemical weapons. This may provoke asymmetrical retaliatory measures on the part of Russia.

At the same time, U.S. President Joe Biden is inflating the Pentagon budget to the detriment of U.S. residents. The ruling circles of the United States are curtailing a number of projects to support socially vulnerable segments of the population, primarily people of color and the unemployed.

The regime of dictator Zelensky in Ukraine is based on power dictatorship and repression. Dictator Zelensky, for the sake of preserving his undivided power, wants to drag the NATO countries and the European Union together with the United States, into an all-out war with Russia, where there will be no winner.

If peace is established in Ukraine, the dictatorship of Zelensky is over! The Kiev regime has no interest in peace in Ukraine.

The present-day U.S. and British politics of sanctions must end! The sanctions do not stop the conflict. They [serve] to prolong the conflict in Ukraine for the benefit of ruling elites in the U.S. and Britain!

We ask you to voice these views and, if possible, depict one or more of these points on your posters.

This will express your solidarity with the struggle of the Ukrainian opposition for peace in Ukraine and show the dictatorial regime of Kiev that the opposition is alive and capable of action and not completely destroyed in the dungeons of the Kiev security forces, in bloody repressions and prisons!

Later, having received from you links, photos and videos of your event, where the views of the Ukrainian opposition were demonstrated, transmitted from M.A.R.T. Corp., we can distribute these photos and videos among the broad circles of the Ukrainian public, crushed by official propaganda, to clearly demonstrate support for our position from the people of the United States and other countries of the West.

Our great and warmest wishes for success in your struggle and with great wish for peace,

The Union of Political Emigrants and Political Prisoners of Ukraine

M.A.R.T. Corp. news agency ]

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett will be at Duke soon.

Judging from the mainstream media, is the US government plotting a "color revolution" coup in the Republic of Georgia?  I thought Georgia already had a thoroughly anti-Russian, anti-Abkhaz, and anti-Ossetian, pro-US, pro-NATO, pro-"Europe" government, whether it is bourgeois "democratic" or not.

International Women's Day and Women's History Month in Carrboro:  www.carrboronc.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=2371

Who blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines?

The New York Times and other media are claiming the week of March 7th that elements in the US government think that a "pro-Ukrainian group" sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines, solving what the media calls a great mystery.  My first thought was to ask if this is being claimed to deny Seymour Hersh's recent report that the "pro-Ukrainian group" of the US and Norway carried out the bombings on the bottom of the Baltic.  [It felt sinister to hear the BBC's headlines – this news that sounds like an obvious cover-up and then talk of the coronavirus lab leak theory, equaling the pandemic is China's fault (in a legal sense?), equaling another obvious attempt to start  a new cold war/WWIII with China]

consortiumnews.com/2023/03/08/as-bakhmut-falls-us-may-turn-from-ukraine-starting-with-pipeline-story/

The cover-up/blacking out of Hersh's inconvenient claims:  fair.org/home/major-us-outlets-found-hershs-nord-strom-scoop-too-hot-to-handle/

February 22nd there is a report of a case of spontaneous (?) BSE or Mad Cow Disease in the UK.

National Invasive Species Awareness Week ( February 20 - 26 in 2023:  www.nisaw.org/ ) in Carrboro:  www.carrboronc.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=2354

The will be a public hearing for the Sanford wastewater treatment plant's permit March 7th at 6pm:  hawriver.org/home/attention-public-hearing-for-sanford-wastewater-treatment-plant-permit/  The high level of PFAS being discharged is an issue.

actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-state-rep-to-support-house-bill-28-and-address-plastic-pollution

February 10th overshadowed by the UFO shootdown news, an agreement was reached between CSX and two unions on paid sick leave, following the Biden administration and Congress' betrayal of rail workers before the threatened national strike:  www.npr.org/2023/02/10/1155763336/freight-rail-workers-union-paid-sick-leave-bernie-sanders-csx

A Norfolk Southern freight train carrying vinyl chloride and other hazardous chemicals derailed around 8:55pm in East Palestine, Ohio, near the eastern state line with Pennsylvania; with fires and chemical spills.  There are reports of children getting sick and sick or dead domestic and wild animals in the area.  According to the Wikipedia article, this event could relate to inadequate brake regulations; moves to longer and heavier trains, with fewer and possibly ill workers; precision scheduled railroading; lack of maintenance, etc.  A reporter from NewsNation was arrested near a press conference by Ohio governor Mike DeWine.

Rage Against the War Machine, organized by the Libertarian Party and the People's Party, along with other organizations, will be in Washington, DC February 19th, with sister events elsewhere and later in the week:  rageagainstwar.com/#Resources  There has been criticism on the left, said to be based on the organizers' politics. 

Paving along Bolin Creek in Carrboro

I forgot to include earlier that the Carrboro Town Council was again considering a paved trail next to Bolin Creek in largely intact Bolin Forest, at its February 14th 7pm work session.  There is a petition against this, at bolincreek.org/blog/policy-alerts/save-bolin-creek/ , now with 1575 signatures.  For more information, see this page and bolincreek.org/blog/ 

A new issue of the monthly left newspaper Triangle Free Press finally came out in November-December 2022.  It might be much harder to find copies now.  

The unidentified balloon floating over the Western US

The media is making a big deal about an alleged Chinese spy balloon, tracked by the USA and Canada, and publicly announced just before a meeting between US and Chinese officials.  Allegedly the US considered downing the balloon over Montana, but worried about falling debris.  What is the difference between a spy satellite and a probably very high-altitude balloon?  Satellites can already observe US nuclear missile silos and other countries know the locations of US land-based ICBMs.  It is said that this makes land-based ICBMs in fixed silos a major factor encouraging nuclear war, because they would have to be used before the other side could destroy them, unlike other nuclear weapons.  A day or two ago there was a report that there is tension over the US-Russia treaty allowing each side to inspect the other's nuclear weapons, such as ICBM bases, for treaty violations.  Can the US military even reliably shoot the balloon down?  There is an item about US anti-satellite weapon tests below.  This isn't the first such balloon in recent years, they say.  During WWII Japan sent incendiary bombs on balloons across the Pacific and Americans were killed.  The media asks what China is doing, but it could be asked why the US military decided to reveal this information now.  The US complains about spying and military exercises, but it is not aggressive behavior when US aircraft and ships go near or into the territory of China or another country or the US conducts military exercises with the ROK, Israel, and Ukraine, often near countries targeted by the US government.  How many uncrewed spy devices has the US flown over other countries or sent in by water?  Was the balloon first reported as a UFO/UAP?  Is it just a weather balloon?

[Now there are claims about "unidentified objects" the US and Canadian governments and media are very careful  not to call UFOs, or even UAPs, being tracked and shot down by US F-22's Friday, February 10th over Alaska and Saturday, February 11th over Yukon, Canada, while there was a possible radar sighting above Havre, Montana February 11th and the air space was closed for a short time.  The expensive stealth F-22's first kills are a high-altitude balloon (possibly setting an altitude record for an air-to-air kill) and two small UFOs, using AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles.]

[2/13 – Supposedly the apparently octagon-shaped object detected by radar over Montana was detected again over Wisconsin and Michigan and then shot down Sunday, February 12th over Lake Huron, this time by an F-16C, flown by the Minnesota Air National Guard, also using a Sidewinder missile (apparently first deployed by Taiwan in the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, and one was captured and reverse engineered by Soviet technicians).  These missiles cost a few hundred thousand dollars each and there is the cost to field the aircraft.  [Apparently two missiles were required, after the first one missed and is lost, somewhere:  www.foxnews.com/us/us-military-first-shot-unknown-octagonal-object-lake-huron-missed ]  And here is Gordon G Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China (by 2011) and The Great U.S. - China Tech War (published in 2020), etc., on NPR's "center-left" imperialist The Takeaway fearmongering about the earlier balloon.  Is this UFO flap a psychological warfare operation by elements in Washington?  Reports of UFOs are probably rising, because people are looking and maybe 'jumpy.'  There were sightings of crewed mystery airships, which would now be called UFOs, mostly in the late 1800's and in the years leading up to WWI. ] [2 It was claimed that this flap is the first time aircraft have been shot down in US airspace, but there are claims that civilian aircraft were shot down on 9/11, and I think it has recently been confirmed that George W Bush did order this, but that is as far as the mainstream media goes.  A retired vice admiral type claimed that the military needs more resources to track these balloons and small UFOs.]

[On NPR's All Things Considered February 13th there was a brief interview with a (different?) retired US admiral M- on using "UFO" versus "UAP."  He said something like the way the public and the entertainment industry uses the word UFO bars the military and government from using it, and NPR's Ailsa Chang helpfully summarized it as UFO equals fiction, versus Unidentified Aerial or Anomalous Phenomenon, a term probably invented by the US government.  On Morning Edition February 13th there was a story about state government control over the West Virginia NPR station ( www.npr.org/2023/02/13/1153590012/west-virginia-public-journalist-dismissed-wvpb-political-interference ), but NPR serves the government and capitalist elites whether on the question of what unidentified flying objects should be called or the facts of the war and crimes in Ukraine.  

Also on Morning Edition there didn't seem to be much presentation of facts in the claim that "God" wasn't conceived of as male from the beginning of Christianity, regarding an Anglican Church decision to use gender-neutral language.  Their guest was from the Yale Divinity School and NPR had plenty of time (4 hours) to provide a historical argument ( www.npr.org/2023/02/13/1156477722/church-of-england-says-gender-neutral-terms-for-god-are-up-for-discussion ).  On All Things Considered it was reported that the US now claims something like universal jurisdiction regarding Ukraine (only), though it was mentioned that this leaves out Iraq, Palestine, etc. They didn't mention that many people accused of serious international crimes don't come to the US to visit Disney Land, they are being actively sheltered here.]

Amphibians crossing

Spotted salamanders cross roads to the vernal pools where they breed, such as in seasonal pools close to the NC Botanical Garden's visitor center in Chapel Hill, during the winter and it won't be long before other amphibians begin possibly perilous journeys to breeding locations, followed by the herpetological carnage on roads in the Triangle and elsewhere, maybe especially in late spring to mid-summer.  Related marbled salamanders breed in the fall and their larger larvae can eat the smaller spotted salamander larvae.  I've seen adult marbled salamanders in Durham, but I've never seen an adult spotted salamander around here, so they seem very rare, though maybe they are more common than I realize.

The annual National Invasive Species Awareness Week will be February 20 - 26 in 2023:  www.nisaw.org/ 

Durham Planning Department announcement – there were earlier meetings:

The full draft of the new Comprehensive Plan is ready for community review and input!

Online engagement through the project’s Social Pinpoint website has launched. Engagement will be open until Monday, March 20 – please plan to review the plan, attend a meeting, and provide your input either online or in person!

In addition to online engagement, community members are invited to attend any of the following open house style in-person meetings or virtual sessions to review the full draft and share their feedback directly with Planning staff. Childcare for the in-person meetings will be provided (by The Safety Nest, LLC ) as well as light snacks, masks, and hand sanitizer. Materials in both English and Spanish along with bilingual staff and/or simultaneous interpretation will be available at all of the meetings.

Virtual Meeting
Monday, February 13, 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Zoom Virtual Meeting in Spanish
Registration Required:  https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register...

Virtual Meeting
Thursday, February 16, 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m.
Zoom Virtual Meeting
Registration Required:  https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register...

In-Person Meeting
Sunday, February 19, 3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Southern School of Energy and Sustainability Cafeteria
800 Clayton Road
Registration Requested:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FXYVM6P

In-Person Meeting (Youth & Family Focused)
Tuesday, February 21, 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Durham County Main Library Auditorium
300 N. Roxboro St.
Registration Requested:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FXYVM6P

While registration is required for the virtual meetings, registration is requested for the in-person meetings to help Planning staff ensure enough food, printed materials, and staffing for childcare are provided. For the final meeting, Planning staff is partnering with the City’s Office on Youth to create a more youth- and family-friendly space and a celebration of the project that will be open to all.

This engagement will be a chance to see all the pieces pulled together into one document, to better understand how it all works together, and to celebrate what we have accomplished together. During this engagement we will also be sharing information on how community members can continue to be involved in the project as the public hearing and adoption process begins.    

Read more information and review the plan here !

If you have feedback or questions, please feel free to contact
ENGAGEDurham@DurhamNC.gov and please sign up for our mailing list to ensure you receive future project updates!

EVENTS

FLOC's annual Songs for Justice Concert benefit was December 9th at 6pm online and in-person at the SSofia Quintero Art + Cultural Center in Toledo, Ohio.  There is related a mini-documentary, about 11 minutes long, at:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfNIBP2QV1I

Ichibancon 13 was January 12th - 15th in Concord, NC:  ichibancon.com/

The NCSSM's annual Native American Indian Powwow was Saturday, February 4th 12 - 5pm in Durham:   www.ncssm.edu/powwow  Other powwows in the State, most in the late summer or fall, are listed here:  calendar.powwows.com/events/categories/pow-wows/pow-wows-in-north-carolina/

History of the Communist Manifesto lecture by Brian Becker February 9th at 6:30pm EST online and in-person at the People's Forum in NYC.

Book talk on Fidel and Malcolm X:  Memories of a Meeting, by Dr Rosemari Mealy, about their September 1960 meeting in Harlem, February 10th at 6pm EST online and in-person at the People's Forum in NYC.

UNC-Charlotte Botanical Gardens' Orchid Festival and Ganache in the Gardens is February 11 - 12th:  ecom.charlotte.edu/C21561_ustores/web/store_main.jsp?

The Green Party's EcoAction Committee is hosting an EcoAction Webinar Forum on Biodiversity and Rights of Nature on Zoom Monday, February 13 at 8pm EST.  The speakers will include Tierra Curry, Natalie Green, and Frederic Guarino.

There was a protest Wednesday, February 15th at 12pm in Washington, DC across from the Longworth and Cannon House office buildings, at the corner of New Jersey and Independence avenues, Support the Men in Guantanamo Who Have Been Cleared for Release.  Another vigil was held around the same time in front of the UK's Parliament House in London:  worldcantwait.net/index.php/calls-to-action/9187-justice-for-the-20-men-already-cleared-for-release-from-guantanamo

Monthly IDSA event, register here.

The Paul J Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville is sponsoring a Red Cross blood drive February 16th 12 - 4:30pm and March 20th 11am - 3:30pm.  The NCBG sometimes has blood drives.

There will be a Beethoven Fundraiser for the Haw River Assembly February 16th at the Haw River Ballroom in Saxapahaw. 

The annual Japanese pop culture convention Kami-Con will be February 11  –13 in Birmingham, Alabama:  www.kamicon.net/

Katsucon 2023 will be February 17 – 19 in National Harbor, Maryland.  NashiCon was later in the spring in Columbia, South Carolina,  but might no longer be held.

The Friends of the Durham Library will have an in-person book sale February 17 – 18th and there will be library book sales in Chapel Hill and Pittsboro in March – April ( see below).

Chapel Hill-based Camellia Forest Nursery will have open houses in February 17 -19 and 24 - 26; March 10 - 12, 17 - 19, and March 31 - April 3; and April 7 - 9, when there will be spring-blooming camellia cultivars and other flowers:  camforest.com/pages/open-house  There are also some late winter camellias on the UNC campus and at NCSU's JC Raulston Arboretum, and probably at Duke and Duke Gardens.

The Great Backyard Bird Count begins February 17th.

The annual National Invasive Species Awareness Week will be February 20 - 26 in 2023:  www.nisaw.org/  [Carrboro, if no where else in the area recognizes the Week:  www.carrboronc.gov/civicalerts.aspx?AID=2354

Soil Sciences - Science Against Capitalism February 22 and 25 at 4:30pm EST online and in-person at the People's Forum in NYC; Marxism in soil science, urban agriculture, and critical physical geography:

UE150 had rallies February 22nd at 12pm at UNC's administrative South Building and at 4pm outside the BOG meeting, moved to 223 South West Street, Raleigh, from UNC:  www.facebook.com/events/1911607909199020/?ref=newsfeed

The 2023 Hatteras Village Waterfowl Festival will be February 24 - 25th:  hatterasonmymind.com/HVCA/WaterfowlFestival/

The Organic Growers School's 30th Annual Spring Conference will be February 24 - 26 at Mars Hill University:  organicgrowersschool.org/conferences/spring/

There will be a Rally for Union Recognition, with food, on the steps of Duke Chapel at 12pm February 24th, following the recognition of the SEIU Duke Graduate Students Union.

The Triangle Labor Seminar will be Friday, February 24th at 3:30 at UNC's Love House, 410 East Franklin Street, and on Zoom.  UNC professor Turk will present a paper, "Saints’ or ‘Scabs’: Contesting Feminized Labors, Social Needs, and the Welfare State in the Volunteering Wars of the 1970s," and there will be others.  For the link and to RSVP contact:  carolinatrianglelaborseminar at gmail

The Haw River Assembly will clean out the trash trout litter trap on Third Fork Creek in Durham Saturday, February 25th and March 25th and seeks volunteers.

There will be a Black History Month Community Bike Ride in Chapel Hill and Carrboro February 26th 12:30 - 2:30, going 5 miles to and from YouthWorx, 117 West Main Street in Carrboro.

Several counties in the Triangle usually hold their Creek Week in March - April and there are spring trash clean ups, such as one organized by the Haw River Assembly.  Earth Day is always April 22nd.  [The HRA's 33rd annual Haw River Clean-Up-a-thon will be March 18th.

The Eno River Association organizes guided Spring Wildflower Hikes annually, March - May:  www.enoriver.org/features/guided-hike-series/

The NC Botanical Garden will host a Hybrid Lunchbox Talk on The NC Fig Buttercup Project:  What's in *your* backyard? March 2nd 12 - 1pm:  ncbg.unc.edu/event/hybrid-lunchbox-talk-the-nc-fig-buttercup-project-whats-in-your-backyard/  Fig buttercup, Ficaria verna, is a newer non-native plant colonizing the area, I think including in my neighborhood.

Annual Aldo Leopold Week will be March 3 - 12:   www.aldoleopold.org/news-events/leopold-week/leopold-week-2023-nurturing-reciprocity/

There will be a screening and panel discussion of Angel from Alabama March 9th at the Chatham County Agriculture and Community Center in Pittsboro at 6pm.  The director will attend.  This is a free event, but tickets are required:  www.eventbrite.com/e/angel-of-alabama-short-film-panel-discussion-tickets-523775164617

The NC Botanical Garden will host Amy Highland for a Virtual Lunchbox Talk on The Trillium of Mt Cuba Center March 9th 12 - 1pm:  ncbg.unc.edu/event/virtual-lunchbox-talk-mt-cuba-trillium/  This group of threatened spring woodland flowers is supposed to be represented in the Triangle, but I've never seen one growing in the wild.  Mount Cuba Center has more than 80 varieties and several species occur naturally in NC.

The annual Banzaicon will be March 10 - 12 in Columbia, South Carolina:  banzaicon.com/

Carrboro's annual Kite Fly will be Sunday, March 12th 1 - 3pm at Hank Anderson Park.  Kites available.  There might be a similar event at Lake Crabtree; sometime, maybe in the spring, I've seen a large number of kites flying above the first field at the north end.

From BAJ:

    7:30pm Tuesday March 14, 

      Balance & Accuracy in Journalism program 

      at the Community Church of Chapel Hill, UU

                         106 Purefoy Rd

       

7:30pmTuesday March 14, our  BAJ program at Community Church,

                              106 Purefoy Road

 Features Matt Hoh introducing "The Coming War on China"

          feature length documentary by John Pilger

TRAILER at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3hbtM_NJ0s

Matthew Hoh, Former Green Party US Senate candidate from NC,

has had 12 years' experience with US military and wars overseas 

with the United States Marine Corps, Department of Defense, and State Department. 

He is on the board of several political organizations advocating for responsible policy, 

and is Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network.

John Pilger is an Australian journalist, writer, scholar, and documentary filmmaker.^[

He has been mainly based in Britain since 1962 and is on the board of Consortiumnews.com

where his current piece strongly criticizes Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese 

for his failure to demand the release of Australian publisher Julian Assange.

        [ ]

                Covid is not done with us, 

            so pls wear a mask... some 

             will be available at the door. 

             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   FYI ...

In 1983 John Pilger interviewed top war correspondent Martha Gellhorn

whose investigative article on El Salvador had just been published.  

She spoke of her report from the Dachau death camp.

     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZAnWnV8CvE

His current article on ConsortiumNews:

https://consortiumnews.com/2023/03/10/john-pilger-the-betrayers-of-julian-assange/

https://peaceandplanetnews.org/marine-corps-legend-who-tried-to-stop-the-vietnam-war/

        Heads of state including Mexico’s president, and major publications 

        now call for an end to the persecution of Julian Assange 

        for the “crime” that singer songwriter Tom Neilson named 

        in his song years ago:

   “It’s a Crime to Tell the Truth.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOytSvV2ERU

There will be a Carrboro Poets' Council open mic at Flyleaf Books Wednesday, March 15th 6 - 7:30pm.

Arbor Day is Friday, March 17th in North Carolina (the first Friday after March 15th - www.arborday.org/celebrate/dates.cfm ).  There was usually a Durham Arbor Day celebration. 

The NC Museum of Art's annual Art in Bloom will be March 15 - 19th:  ncartmuseum.org/series/art-in-bloom-presented-by-pnc/

Demand Peace in Ukraine:  Stop the US War Machine! - ANSWER, CODEPINK, and The People' Forum are organizing a demonstration at the White House Saturday, March 18th at 1pm and events around the country that weekend:

UNAC on March 18th:

"Coinciding with the 20th anniversary weekend of the criminal U.S.-invasion of Iraq a major set of actions including a demonstration at the White House in Washington, D.C. on Saturday March 18 demanding "Peace in Ukraine – Say NO to Endless U.S. Wars” and “Fund People's Needs, Not the War Machine.” Since 2003, the U.S. has engaged in sanctions (economic war) on more than 40 countries. These targets of U.S. economic warfare include the people of Cuba, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Iran and many other nations. Even in the wake of the worst disasters, like the recent deadly earthquake, Washington keeps its cruel sanctions in place against Syria. U.S. bases and “commands” blanket most of the world. It is a global empire.

The Biden administration is determined to escalate the Ukraine war. The real goal of the massive arming and training of Ukrainian forces has nothing to do with the interests of Ukrainian, Russian or American people. The aim instead is to “weaken Russia” as stated by the U.S. Secretary of Defense himself, even at the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war that could end life on Earth. A U.S. General commanding 50,000 troops in the Pacific also issued a letter to his sub-commanders in recent days informing them that he believes that the United States will be at war with China within two years. The danger of global war is growing! The people must act!

The demonstration will make connections between the human and financial toll of U.S. militarism at home and abroad. Key demands include:

1. Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War
2. Abolish NATO – End U.S. militarism & sanctions!
3. Fund people’s needs, not the war machine!
4. No war with China!
5. End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel!
6. Fight racism & bigotry at home, not other peoples!
7. U.S. hands off  Haiti
8. End AFRICOM" 

Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site's 158th Anniversary Living History event will be March 18th 1 - 4pm in Four Oaks:  historicsites.nc.gov/upcoming-events/bentonville-battlefield

The People's Forum will hold a Spring Equinox People's Market March 18th 1 - 8pm in New York, and apparently there are still Really, Really Free Markets on some or all Saturdays at the Carrboro town commons by the town hall, in addition to the many farmers' and flea markets in the Triangle.

The annual National Cherry Blossom Festival will be March 20th - April 16th in Washington, DC, with the Sakura Matsuri –Japanese Street Festival April 15 – 16th:  nationalcherryblossomfestival.org

The NC Botanical Garden will host Hannah Levenson from NCSU for a Virtual Lunchbox Talk on Supporting Native Pollinator Communities in NC Agroecosytems March 23th 12 - 1pm:  reg.learningstream.com/reg/event_page.aspx?ek=0005-0014-e20546b9f29a4930b3bdbb2d6f1d2600  I've been seeing an unfamiliar, probably native very fuzzy small brown bee species this unseasonable early spring, for example at Chinese holly flowers.

Earth Hour will be Saturday March 25th in 2023 and March 30th in 2024, especially 8:30 - 9:30pm, when people are encouraged to turn off unnecessary lights as a symbol of commitment to dealing with climate change and other environmental problems (and it could reduce light pollution for a short time).  National Dark-Sky Week is supposed to be held annually the week of the New Moon in April, and highlights light pollution and stargazing. 

The annual Triad Anime Con will be March 31st - April 2nd in Winston-Salem, NC:  triadanimecon.com/

Register at:  peoplesforum.org/events/the-untold-successes-of-german-democratic-republic/

The annual North Carolina Science Festival will be April 1 - 30 with events throughout the State: ncsciencefestival.org/ 

The NC SciFest will be at Cary's Hemlock Bluffs Nature Preserve April 1st 10am - 1pm.

The NC Botanical Garden's Annual McNeill Sims Native Plant Lecture will be Sunday, April 2nd 5:30 - 6:45.

The Organic Growers School's Cuba Agroecology Tour will be April 4 - 13:  organicgrowersschool.org/events/travel-cuba/

The NC Botanical Garden's Twilight Thursdays, days when it will be open until 7pm, for equity, will be April 6 - June 15th and August 17 - September 28th.

The annual NC Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice, inspired by Nicaraguan examples, will end in Raleigh April 7th, Good Friday, starting at 9am.

The annual NC Azalea Festival will be April 12 - 16th in Wilmington:  ncazaleafestival.org/

Register at:  peoplesforum.org/events/unfinished-ferment-indonesia-from-independence-to-today-2/

There will be a Carolina Wetlands Association meet and greet in Raleigh April 12th 6 - 8pm.

There will be a Labor Rising Teach-in at UNC April 14 12 - 1 and 5 - 6, with food at the evening session; details TBA:  carolinatrianglelaborseminar at Gmail

The Lyrid meteor shower is April 15 - 29th, peaking on the night of the 22nd amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/2020-meteor-shower-list/ and amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/

Bentonville in Bloom, part of the annual North Carolina Science Festival [April 1 - 30: ncsciencefestival.org/ ], and looking at local flora and fauna, will be at Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site Saturday, April 15th 10am - 3pm:  historicsites.nc.gov/upcoming-events/bentonville-battlefield  The Triangle Land Conservancy recently acquired 1120 acres of swampy bottomland, the Brogden Bottomlands, along a remote stretch of the Neuse River nearby:  triangleland.org/blog/tlc-saves-1120-acres-in-johnston-county 

US Tax Day is April 18th in 2023:  www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-sets-january-23-as-official-start-to-2023-tax-filing-season-more-help-available-for-taxpayers-this-year

The annual Haw River 5K Island Ramble will be April [22nd] in Saxapahaw:  hawriver.org/haw-river-island-ramble/

The NCGP is organizing an Eco-Socialist Earth Day event Saturday, April 22 12 - 3pm at Raleigh's John Chavis Community Center, shelter #2505; with some food.

The Durham County Library's Third Annual Library Fest: The Storytelling Edition will be April 24 - 29th.

NC's coastal Bodie Island Lighthouse will be open for stair climbing April 26 - October 9th this year, and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse further south on the OBX, which I have been up, will probably not open, but there is a virtual tour:  www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/lighthouseclimbs.htm and www.nps.gov/caha/planyourvisit/bils.htm

Bullington Gardens' Spring Plant Sale will be April 27 - 29 9am - 4pm in Hendersonville, NC:  bullingtongardens.org

International Workers' Day/May Day is May 1st.  Area university commencements are roughly around the same time and Mother's Day is May 14th.  [Lawyer Benjamin Crump, from Lumberton, NC, will speak at NCCU's commencement.]

According to the NC WRC, bats have pups starting around May 1st, so any in houses should only be be removed before then:  www.ncwildlife.org/Connect-With-Us/homeowners-should-prepare-for-bat-roosting-season-now-14 

The Spring 2023 Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival will be May 4 - 7th:  www.shakorihillsgrassroots.org/

The 9th annual Freight Train Blues concert series will be May 5 - June 23 on the Carrboro Town Commons:  www.carrboronc.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=2359  There is/was usually a similar live concert series outside Chapel Hill's Carolina Inn on Friday evenings during the summer.

The Haw River Festival will be May 6th in Saxapahaw and the beginning of Saturdays in Saxapahaw.  

There will be a Spring Flea Market 8am - 12pm May 6th at 5122 Revere Road, at the intersection with Seaton Road in the Parkwood neighborhood in southern Durham, the first in a (very?) long time if it goes through; there used to be two per year, attended by at least hundreds (?) of people and occasionally with organizational tabling; vendors can register starting April 3rd:   parkwoodhoa.nabrnetwork.com/

The annual Got to Be NC Festival will be May 19 – 21 at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, and concessionaire applications are due by April 1st:   ncstatefair.org

Sumter, South Carolina's annual Iris Festival will be May 25 - 28:  www.sumtersc.gov/irisfestival

The Strategic Corporate Research Summer School will be June 18 - 23, with applications due May 1st:  www.ilr.cornell.edu/scr-summer-school

The Uproar Festival of Public Art will be July 14 - August 12 in Orange County:  uproarfestnc.com/

[CREEK WEEKS:

Durham County - March 18 - 25:  keepdurhambeautiful.org/creek-week-events

Orange County - early March? [March 17 - 26; www.orangecountync.gov/CreekWeek ]:  www.co.orange.nc.us/2905/Events-and-Activities

Chatham County/Regional - March 18 - 25; theme - Water Connects Us:  www.chathamcountync.gov/government/departments-programs-i-z/watershed-protection/regional-creek-week

Forsyth County - March 18 - 26:  forsythcreekweek.squarespace.com/

Raleigh's Regional Creek Week - March 19 - 25:  raleighnc.gov/stormwater/celebrate-regional-creek-week  A few years ago there was a creek week for Swift Creek only (?).

Alamance County - May 13 - 21:  alamancecreekweek.wordpress.com/ 

Guilford County - in early June?:  www.guilfordcreekweek.org/ , www.guilfordcountync.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/3822/

This might not be an exhaustive list and some areas might have their creek weeks in the fall.]

LIBRARY BOOKSALES:

The Friends of the Durham Library's Books Among Friends has a new location, in the Shoppes of Hope Valley, 3825 South Roxboro Road, #131, zipcode 27713.  There are satellite sales at each library.  For more information and the Friends membership form, see:  fodlnc.org/book-sales/   Their online store is at:  shopfodlnc.org  There will be an in-person sale February 17 -18th:

The Friends of the Chapel Hill Public Library has an online store at:  friendschpl.org/online-book-store and there will be in-person sales March 24 - 26, August 25 - 27, and December 1 - 3:   friendschpl.org/FCHPLevents

The Friends of the Chatham County Library will have in-person sales March 30 - April 1 and September 21 - 23 in 2023:  www.friendsccl.org/  and they now have an online store, at:  friendsccl.org/Store

The Friends of the Lee County Libraries has sales at open libraries:  library.leecountync.gov/friends

Until about 2019 the Wake County Public Libraries had a massive book sale or expo, with hundreds of thousands of books and other items for sale, over a few days every May at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, but books culled by WCPL or donated by the public are now being sold through Thrift Books ( Thriftbooks.com ) for higher profit, or shredded for recycling by the company.  See www.wakegov.com/book-donations and www.wral.com/wake-county-public-libraries-stops-annual-book-sales-for-now/20032795/

There is supposed to be a sale every Monday 2-4pm at the Warren County Memorial Library:  www.wcmlibrary.org/friends-of-the-library-book-sale/

Granville County:  granville.lib.nc.us/friends-of-the-library/ and www.facebook.com/FriendsOfTheGranvillePublicLibrarySystem/

Person County:  www.personcountync.gov/departments-services/departments-i-z/library/friends-of-the-library-1603  

Vance:  www.facebook.com/friendsperrymemoriallibrary/  

Moore County:  www.facebook.com/moorecountylibrary/

Caswell:  www.caswellcountync.gov/blog/categories/library-programs

Alamance County:  www.facebook.com/AlamanceLibraries , www.alamance-nc.com/library

The Friends of the High Point Library:  www.highpointnc.gov/927/Friends and www.facebook.com/HighPointPublicLibrary/

Forsyth:  www.facebook.com/groups/105298719513537 , www.forsyth.cc/library/   www.facebook.com/FCPublicLibrary ,  www.facebook.com/GSOLibrary  , library.greensboro-nc.gov

See also Book Sale Finder:  www.booksalefinder.com/NC.html

The Digging Durham Seed Library is open:  durhamcountylibrary.org/digging-durham-seed-library/  [A seed library opens in Carteret County April 14th; see the notice earlier.]

PLANT SALES:

JC Raulston Arboretum at NCSU:  online April 6th and in-person April 28 – 29th

Mordecai Historic Park in Raleigh:  April 22nd – 23rd

Bullington Gardens in Hendersonville, NC:  April 27 – 29th

NC Botanical Garden:  Saturday, May 6th 9am – 1pm

CALENDAR

Saturday, December 3, 2022 two Duke Energy electrical substations in Moore County, NC, nearby southwest of Durham, in the Sandhills region, were expertly shot up, starting around 7pm, knocking out the power over much of Moore County.  A curfew was imposed, schools closed, a shelter opened, and a reward offered.  The power was restored by December 7th or 8th.  

Early on April 16, 2013 several people cut communication cables and then carefully shot up 17 transformers at PG and E's Metcalf substation in Coyote, near San Jose, California, but there wasn't much power loss.  In August and October of that year one man attacked electrical equipment in central Arkana.  In March and April 1975 a guarded PG and E substation was bombed twice by the NWLF, or so they claimed.  December 31st that year the George Jackson Brigade bombed a substation in Seattle.  In 2016 a man shot at a substation in Utah and had plans for further attacks. November 11, 2022 a Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative substation in Jones County, NC was vandalized, knocking out power for over 12,000 people.  In late November there were at least six attack in the Pacific Northwest, two with guns.  The morning of December 25th four substations were attacked around Tacoma, knocking out the power to more than 14,000 people.  Two men were arrested January 3rd, but apparently did it only as part of a plan for burglaries.  [There were also attacks on electrical infrastructure in Brazil around January 8, 2023.] [A man was arrested on suspicion that he bombed PG and E transformers in December and January:  abc7news.com/san-jose-explosives-pge-transformers-blown-up-peter-karasev-arrest-sj-man-arrested-in/12910094/ ]

December 7, 1981 rightist James Wenneker von Brunn attempted to seize members of the Federal Reserve Board in DC December 7, 1981. 

A Reichsbürger monarchist coup plot was allegedly foiled December 7, 2022 in Germany.  In April 2017 Rightist soldiers in Germany's special forces were charged with planning to assassinate several politicians in the Day X plot.

Activist Norman David Mayer (March 31, 1916 – December 9, 1982), claiming to have explosives, threatened to blow up the Washington Monument December 8, 1982, over nuclear weapons; he was shot and killed.

Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov came closest to the Sun December 8, 2019.

The Kecksburg Incident was December 9, 1965 in Pennsylvania and there is an annual festival commemorating the event in late July.

The AquaDom aquarium and elevator, in Berlin, Germany's Radisson Collection Hotel, apparently the largest cylindrical aquarium in the world, failed around 5:45am Friday, December 16, 2022.  Two people were hospitalized and there could have been fatalities if more people had been around, but all or most of the aquarium's 1500 tropical fish, representing 100 species, were killed.  Fish kept behind the scenes survived.  It isn't clear how the fish were killed, but the failure might have occurred because it was about 16 outside that night while the aquarium was about 79 degrees Fahrenheit.

Comet 19P/Borrelly or Comet Borrelly was discovered December 28, 1904 by French astronomer Alphonse Borrelly, working in Marseille.  It was the 19th comet known to be periodic, and will be brighter when it returns December 11, 2028, at a similar location as in 2021-2022. It was also in Cetus when it was discovered in 1904.  It came closest to the Sun February 1 in 2022 NASA's Deep Space 1 probe took detailed images of the comet in 2001, the third time a comet has been examined more or less up close.  Borrelly the astronomer was born December 8, 1842 and died February 2, 1926.  

The 1942 Rose Bowl Game was held January 1st in Duke Stadium in Durham because of the risk of bombing during WWII.

Around January 6th is also Christian Twelfth Day/Epiphany/Theophany/Three Kings' Day/Little Christmas, in some cases with celebration beginning on the eve before.  The following Monday is Plough Monday. 

Kentucky Air National Guard Captain Thomas Francis Mantell Jr was killed chasing a UFO January 7, 1948 near Franklin on the southern state line bordering Tennessee.  Mantell, 25, was flying a WWII-era P-51 Mustang fighter. It has been suggested that the UFO was a Skyhook balloon, after the USAF's claim that Mantell had been chasing the planet Venus fell through. A similar balloon allegedly crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. 

Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942.

Korean leader Kim Jong-un was born January 8, 1982 (this is the DPRK's official date while other countries dispute the year).        

Jared Lee Loughner shot 19 people, including Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, Federal judge John Roll, and 9-year-old Christina-Taylor Green, killing 6, January 8, 2011 at a Safeway in Casas Adobes, Tucson.

Iran fired ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq January 8, 2020 in retaliation for the assassination of Iranian major general Qassem Soleimani, Abd Mahdi al-Muhandis of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, and others outside the Baghdad International Airport early on January 3rd.  In assassinating Iranian and Iraqi officials, with whom the US is not in a declared war, in Iraq, without consulting other parties, the Trump administration probably violated international law, agreements with Iraq, and US law.  Subsequently Trump threatened to attack Iran's cultural heritage, which would most likely be a war crime, similar to actions by IS, the Taliban, Nazi Germany, and the Spanish conquistadors, though it took a while for the media to admit the magnitude of Trump's statement.

Brazil's January 6, 2021 was January 8, 2023.

Journalist Herbert Lionel Matthews was born January 10, 1900 in Manhattan, NYC and passed away July 30, 1977.

Conservationist Aldo Leopold was born January 11, 1887 in Burlington, Iowa.  He is best known for his book A Sand County Almanac, published posthumously in 1949.  For more information, see:  www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/        

The USA's extraterritorial prison on stolen Cuban territory - Guantanamo - opened January 11th; there is a list of protests in mid-January 2023 at:  www.rightsanddissent.org/news/guantanamo-at-21-upcoming-vigils-rallies-and-events-to-mark-the-anniversary/

Following US calls for full-spectrum dominance, including in space, and missile shields, China used a missile to destroy one of its old weather satellites January 11, 2007.  The Dong Neng-3 missile, possibly an anti-satellite weapon, was tested February 5, 2008.  More recently Russia and India have also tested anti-satellite weapons.  The USSR and the USA worked on such weapons throughout the Cold War, and the first successful interception seems to have been by the USSR in February 1970.  The US tested anti-satellite missiles fired from a modified F-15 fighter in 1984-85. 

Warfare in space could produce debris that would prevent human use of space long-term and anti-ballistic missile weapons make a nuclear war more likely.  One country would think it had an edge and could escape retaliation by using nuclear weapons first, so other countries would be more likely to use their weapons, under the idea of 'use them or lose them.'  

The genome of the coronavirus was published January 11, 2020.

 

Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was born January 12, 1907.  He led the early Soviet space program to successes such as putting Sputnik I and Yuri Gagarin into orbit, and sending the first spacecraft to the Moon (though it was not intended to be a soft landing).  His name was hidden, to avoid assassination attempts by the US government, until after his death on January 14, 1966.  He was honored with the placement of his ashes in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.  In recent months rightist Ukrainian nationalists have claimed that Ukrainians did more than Russians to defeat Germany in World War II and here is an anti-Soviet claim on Korolev or Korolyov, born in Zhytomyr, at the time part of the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine  (from The Kyiv Independent, which has received foreign funding, and re-posted by Reader Supported News, which might have been more progressive at one time, but is very on board with Biden's proxy war in Ukraine:  www.rsn.org/001/yaroslav-azhnyuk-an-untold-story-of-serhiy-korolyov-the-ukrainian-who-launched-humanity-into-space.html ).  Korolev's ancestry apparently includes many nationalities in the region from Greece to Russia.

Among the Iranian scientists probably assassinated by Israel, the USA, or Sunni Arab countries during the Bush and Obama years, Ardeshir Hosseinpour might have been murdered or died in an accident January 15, 2007, Masoud Alimohammadi was killed January 12, 2010, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan was killed January 11, 2012, and in January 2015 an assassination attempt was foiled. 

German naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian died January 13, 1717 in Amsterdam.  She was born April 2, 1647 in Frankfort, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Second Battle of Fort Fisher, was January 13 - 15, 1865, ending with the fort's surrender.  Known as the "Gibraltar of the South," this was the largest Confederate fortification and part of the defenses around the mouth of the Cape Fear River, leading to the Confederacy's last major port at Wilmington.  The final battle is supposed to have involved the largest bombardment and amphibious assault in history up to that time.  The Fort's main magazine touched off just after sunrise on January 16th, probably due to negligence, and many soldiers on both sides were killed.  Federal forces took Wilmington February 22nd.  There is now a Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, but much of the site was destroyed for US Highway 421 and a WWII landing strip, and is eroding as the ocean rises.  Conservation of this historic site only began in 1960 and it is a biologically rich area at the extreme southeast tip of NC, warmed by the Gulf Stream nearby offshore.  Visitors in the general area might see whales, painted buntings, giant swallowtail butterflies, and golden silk orbweaver spiders.  

The last recorded sighting of the Las Vegas (or Vegas Valley) leopard frog, native to Clark County, Nevada, was January 13, 1942, when 10 were collected at Tule Springs.  It was thought to be extinct, due to habitat loss, making it the only frog native only to the USA to have become extinct in historical times.  A 2011 study argues that the Las Vegas leopard frog was genetically to the Chiricahua leopard frog, which still lives and inhabits a larger area, though also imperiled, by habitat destruction and the chytrid fungus epidemic.

The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia sank off Isola del Giglio in Tuscany, Italy January 13, 2012.

Rightist Japanese author Yukio Mishima (Kimitake Hiraoka) was born January 14, 1925 in what is now part of Tokyo's Shinjuku district.  

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were tortured and killed in Berlin January 15, 1919 by the Freikorps, working with the Social-Democratic government of Germany (see durhamspark.blogspot.com/2023/01/the-assassination-of-rosa-luxemburg-and.html ).

January 15th is Chosŏn'gŭl Day in DPR Korea, celebrating the creation of Korea's writing system in 1444.  The ROK's separate Hangul Proclamation Day commemorates October 9, 1446. 

UNC - Chapel Hill apparently opened January 16, 1795, but did not have any students until that February.

Martin Luther King Jr Day was Monday, January 16th in 2023, marking his birth January 15, 1929. 

 George HW Bush launched the Gulf War against Iraq, over its occupation of Kuwait, January 16, 1991.  Americans often aren't aware that other recent wars have been referred to as the Persian Gulf War.  

The Revolutionary War Battle of Cowpens was January 17, 1781 near Cowpens, South Carolina.

Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii was overthrown January 17, 1893 with the involvement of the US (though President Grover Cleveland was apparently against the overthrow), creating the Republic of Hawaii, which was annexed as a US territory in 1898.  Hawaii did not become a state until 1959, apparently because territorial status benefitted capitalist interests.  There was a brief pro-monarchy uprising in January 1895.  The US lease of Pearl Harbor as a naval base had begun January 20, 1887 and that year King Kalakāua was forced to accept a constitution limiting the monarchy and empowering Americans and Europeans over native Hawaiians, Asians, and those with less than a certain amount of income or wealth.     

Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of newly independent Democratic Republic of Congo, was executed January 17, 1961, with the involvement of Belgium (which had held the DRC as a colony), the UK, and the USA.  November 25, 1965 Mobutu seized power and later renamed the country Zaire; he wasn't deposed until 1997 and was supported by the USA and China. 

As part of the movement against the Afghanistan War and the Bush administration's plans for an invasion of Iraq, poorly covered by the US media at the time, there were demonstrations around the world and in the USA in January 2003, including massive demonstrations January 18th in Washington, DC and San Francisco, as well as smaller demonstrations elsewhere, organized by International ANSWER and Not In Our Name (NION).

Venezuelan protester Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, or Tortuguita, was shot to death at "Cop City" in Atlanta January 18, 2023.  There were protests January 20 - 22, and a march January 21st in downtown Atlanta, with damage to buildings and a police car was burned.

Saturnino Paredes Macedo, one of the founders of the Communist Party of Peru (Marxist-Leninist) (with José Sotomayor, and Abimael Guzmán, according to the Wikipedia entry), was born January 19, 1921 in Ancash, on the northern coast:  pcpml.com/2021/01/20/viva-el-centenario-del-natalicio-del-dr-saturnino-paredes-macedo/.  The PCP(M-L) itself was founded in January 1964, splitting from the Peruvian Communist Party (according to Wikipedia, while the party's website traces its origin to October 28, 1928 and Mariátegui); the PCP(M-L) is a member of the ICMLPO.

The first known case of the novel coronavirus in the USA was detected January 20, 2020, it was known to be passing from person to person in the US by the 30th and people were dying in the US by that February.  A US public health emergency was declared January 31st and WHO had issued an international warning the day before.

The last king of France, Louis XVI (citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine January 21, 1793.

Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet statesman Vladimir Ilyich Lenin passed away January 21, 1924. 

A unit of DPRK special forces attempted to storm the ROK's Blue House and assassinate authoritarian president Park Chung-hee January 21, 1968.  About a decade later the director of the ROK's Korean Central Intelligence Agency assassinated Park, October 26, 1979.

The Vietnam War Battle of Khe Sanh began January 21, 1968 and lasted until July 9th.

The DPRK seized the spy ship USS Pueblo in or near its coastal waters January 21, 1968.

The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision was handed by the Supreme Court down January 21, 2010; for example see:  www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/21/another-date-that-will-live-in-infamy-10-years-after-citizens-united/

Crimean amateur astronomer Gennadiy Vladimirovich Borisov, discoverer of the first known interstellar comet, discovered the small asteroid 2023 BU January 21, 2023, just days before it passed by the Earth at an altitude below that of geosynchronous satellites, on January 27th.  It is thought that it would have broken up 30 km in the air, if it had hit the Earth, but the small asteroid that jolted Chelyabinsk, Russia February 15, 2013 exploded at that height.

Italian communist leader Antonio Gramsci was born January 22, 1891.  He was a leader of the Communist Party of Italy, founded January 21, 1921 and is well-known for works such as the Prison Notebooks, written while he was imprisoned by Italy's Fascist government.  Prison conditions resulted in his death April 7, 1937.  Some of his works are online at:  www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm 

A peasant uprising began in western El Salvador January 22, 1932 but it was quickly defeated.  Afterward the government killed tens of thousands of alleged communists and Indians.

The first Boeing 747 jetliner went into regular service with Pan Am (Pan American World Airlines) January 22, 1970, flying between New York and London.  This iconic humpbacked passenger jet was the original "jumbo jet" and the first wide-body airliner.  It is still being produced or was until recently, but the cost of initial development almost destroyed Boeing.  A prototype first flew February 9, 1969.  Apparently at the time it was thought that supersonic airliners would soon make the 747 obsolete, except as a cargo carrier.    

Evo Morales became president of Bolivia January 22, 2006 and was elected to two more terms, until he was toppled by a violent US-backed coup and received asylum in Mexico, November 12, 2019.  An unelected rightist and anti-Indian government temporarily ruled Bolivia.  The security forces refused to protect the elected government, but violently repressed and killed Morales supporters.  Morales' party returned to power in the next election.

The Lunar New Year was January 22nd in 2023.

Around midnight on January 24, 1961 a B-52 from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base disintegrated in the air near Goldsboro, releasing two thermonuclear bombs.  One bomb parachuted down, but the other ploughed into the ground, breaking into pieces, some estimated to have gone up to 180 feet underground.  In one of the bombs every switch necessary for a nuclear explosion was on, save one.  Reportedly the explosive yield wouldn't not have been as powerful as the designed yield, much greater than the atomic bombs used on Japanese cities; instead only the first fission-based part of the bomb would have gone off, and not the second fusion-based component.  Parts of the buried bomb were recovered, but much of the bomb, including uranium and plutonium, is still buried, on land now owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, and the groundwater is occasionally tested for radioactivity.  In Eureka, three miles north of the bomb site, there is a relatively new state historical marker titled "Nuclear Mishap."  Of the 8 person crew, 3 were killed, and this is the only time someone is known to have bailed out of the top hatch of a B-52 without using an ejection seat.  There was a demonstration at the Federal building in Raleigh related to this near miss and the new UN anti-nuclear weapon treaty.

There is an eye-opening list of military nuclear accidents at:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents  , in some instances potentially risking WWIII.  Among other accidents around this time of year, February 13, 1950 a USAF B-36 Peacemaker bomber jettisoned a simulated but still radioactive bomb, a dirty bomb, in British Columbia, Canada; January 31, 1958 a USAF B-47 carrying an armed nuclear bomb crashed and burned in Morocco; February 5, 1958 a nuclear bomb was jettisoned and lost in the ocean off Georgia; February 28, 1958 at a USAF base in the UK a B-47 ejected its external fuel tanks, setting a parked and manned B-47 carrying a nuclear bomb on fire for 16 hours, and the incident was kept secret for decades; January 18, 1959 a parked F-100 Super Sabre fighter carrying a nuclear bomb burned at an undisclosed US base in the Pacific; January 13, 1964 a B-52 carrying nuclear weapons broke up over Pennsylvania; January 17, 1966 a collision during midair refueling in Francoist Spain released four nuclear bombs, and the conventional explosives in two of the bombs went off, scattering plutonium over the countryside; January 21, 1968 a B-52 carrying four bombs crashed near the Thule Air Base in Greenland, where an explosion could have been confused with a nuclear attack, and the crash caused a nuclear weapons scandal in Denmark, the colonial power.

January 24, 1978 Kosmos 954, a malfunctioning nuclear-powered Soviet naval surveillance satellite disintegrated over Canada, requiring clean up of radioactive debris and the USSR paid restitution, though only half of what Canada asked for.  Another malfunctioning nuclear-powered satellite, Kosmos 1402, fell to Earth early in 1983, but completely burned up or sank into the ocean.

The UN's International Day of Education is January 24th:  www.un.org/en/observances/education-day

There were UFO reports in Durham January 25 and 27 (?), 1954, according to journalist and history writer Jim Wise, in his book Durham Tales:  the morris street maple, the plastic cow, the durham day that was and more.

Pakistani Mir Aimal Kansi carried out a shooting attack outside the CIA's Langley, Virginia headquarters January 25, 1993, killing 2 and wounding 3 CIA employees.  Kansi was born in Quetta February 10 or October 22 in 1964 and was executed November 14, 2002 at Virginia's Greensville Correctional Center, near Jarratt.  See also:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_headquarters_shooting and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_political_violence_in_Washington,_D.C. 

January 25, 1995 a scientific rocket was launched from Norway to study the aurora borealis and Russia thought it could be a nuclear missile and prepared to launch a nuclear counterattack, marking the first and only time that a nuclear power is known to have activated its "nuclear football" and prepared to fire off its weapons, though nuclear war almost began during the Cuban Missile Crisis as well.

The demonstrations that ultimately led to the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak began January 25, 2011 (Egypt's National Police Day); Mubarak withdrew from office February 11th.  As in the revolution in Tunisia, several people set themselves on fire in protest, starting January 18th.   

Well-known Trotskyist blogger, founder (?) of the Marxmail listserve, and subject of a comic book autobiography drawn by Harvey Pekar Louis Proyect passed away in his sleep August 25, 2021 due to long-standing illness.  According to the announcement on his blog he was born January 26, 1945.  Some memorial articles were posted at counterpunch.org, a site that frequently carried his articles. 

 

The siege of Leningrad by German and allied Finnish forces during WW2 lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, killing well over a million Soviet citizens, civilians and military personnel.

The Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the USSR January 27, 1945 and January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 

The Vietnam War ended January 27, 1973, from the US point of view, with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords between the US, the Republic of Vietnam, what was then called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government, but fighting continued in divided Vietnam. 

Xiomara Castro was sworn in as president of Honduras January 27, 2022, with the US vice president and other international representatives in attendance, and even a reporter from NPR.  There is little mention on NPR of relevant issues such as the 2009 coup against Castro's husband, Manuel Zelaya which led to the government whose corruption and poor record was later openly criticized on NPR.  The Obama administration's support in the coup is rarely if ever mentioned.  There is talk of mending fences to address the "root causes" of the mass migration from Central America, with no mention of even the possibility working with Nicaragua, and whether Honduras will continue to diplomatically recognize Taiwan, in the continuing US campaign against China.  The US government's friendliness seemed surprising.

The Outer Space Treaty was created January 27, 1967 and came into effect October 10th that year.

Astronauts Day

 

Astronauts Day, January 27th this winter, commemorates deaths in the US space program, many of which happened in late January and early February, and is on the last Friday of January each year.  According to Wikipedia, one way to commemorate is by placing a lit candle in your window and thinking of those who died for the space program and re-committing to achieve a personal goal.  

José Martí, one of the leaders of the movement for Cuban independence from Spain and the US, was born January 28, 1853 and died in the Battle of Dos Ríos against the Spanish military, May 19, 1895.  The US later entered what became Spanish-American War and gained control of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.  This is often seen as the beginning of US imperialism, though the  seizure of Hawaii, idea of Manifest Destiny, and the Monroe Doctrine predate the Spanish-American War.  

   

Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed and the seven crewmembers killed January 28, 1986 shortly after liftoff, due to the failure of an O-ring on one of the solid rocket boosters.  

International Zebra Day is also supposed to be in late January.

Over 100 and possibly a few hundred Shoshone men, women, and children were killed in the Bear River Massacre on bitterly cold January 29, 1863 near what is now Preston, Idaho.  There was a battle, but many Shoshone were killed, others captured, and much of their property destroyed or seized, while only a few Federal soldiers were killed or wounded.

According to the book Weird Carolinas, a man at a farm in Conway, SC claimed to have seen and fired a pistol at a UFO late on January 29, 1953; the UFO fled upward at a high speed.

There was a Weather Underground bombing at the State Department January 29, 1975.

During the night on January 29, 2001 someone used a commandeered bulldozer to destroy the Vietnam Veterans Living Memorial, near the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.  A few days later the memorials US flag was stolen.  Except for the granite base, the memorial had to be rebuilt from scratch, and was re-dedicated that November.  No suspects were arrested.  The memorial was first dedicated August 8, 1992.  For more information see:  docsouth.unc.edu/commland/monument/195/

The Obama administration used a drone to kill US citizen and alleged al Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki September 30, 2011 in Yemen, the first such assassination of a citizen.  October 14th that year they killed his 17-year-old son Abdulrahman Anwar al-Awlaki, also an American citizen and not known to be involved in terrorism.  Allegedly the military had been trying to kill someone else, not present at the time.  January 29, 2019 Anwar al-Awlaki's 8-year-old daughter Nawar (Nora) al-Awlaki, another US citizen, was killed during a US-UAE raid in the Yakla area of Yemen, and took two hours to die from a bullet wound.  According to the Wikipedia article, more non-combatants (25) were killed than al Qaida members (14), including a three-month-old and other children and a pregnant woman.  Along with the noncombatant casualties than 120 livestock were killed and over 12 buildings damaged in the poor and wartorn country.  US government lost were one soldier and an Osprey aircraft.  

Charles Stuart was executed January 30, 1649:  michaelharrison.org.uk/2017/01/30th-january-1649-execution-charles-stuart/

UK soldiers carried out Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre January 30, 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland.

The first US national marine sanctuary was established January 30, 1975, to protect the wreck of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor, off of Cape Hatteras.

British naturalist and author Gerald Malcolm Durrell was born January 7, 1925 and passed away January 30, 1995. 

The Tet Offensive in Vietnam against US and ARVN forces began January 31, 1968 (see:  michaelharrison.org.uk/2017/02/31st-january-1968-tet-offensive-vietnam/ )

The Battle of Hue or Siege of Hue, part of the Tet Offensive and one of the longest and costliest battles during the Vietnam War, was January 31 - March 1, 1968; at the time the city of Hue was at the north end of the southern Republic of Vietnam.

The last Boeing 747 was built December 6, 2022 and delivered to Atlas Air January 31, 2023.

Imbolc is February 1st, as is Saint Brigid's Day, also associated wth Ireland [St. Brigid might represent a Christianization of the Celtic deity Brigid].

October 14, 1924 the Kara-Kirghiz Autonomous Oblast was created within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and February 11 (1st?), 1926 it became the Kirghiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, still part of the RSFSR.  Presumably this is when Bishkek was renamed for Mikhail Frunze.  The Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was created as a constituent republic of the USSR when the "Stalin Constitution" was adopted, December 5, 1936. 

Explorer 1, the USA's first satellite, was launched February l, 1958.

Nguyen Van Lem or Bay Lop, an officer of the National Liberation Front, was captured during the Tet Offensive February 1st in what was known as Saigon at the time and summarily executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, leader of the South Vietnamese National Police, shown in a famous image captured by NBC and the Associated Press.  Loan later took refuge in the US, living near Washington, DC.

Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs seized the office of The Robesonian, in Robeson County, NC, with hostages, February 1, 1988, seeking to expose corruption. 

David Glenn Lewis of Dumas, in the Texas Panhandle, was killed, apparently in a hit and run crash, late on February 1, 1993 in Moxee, Washington, near Yakima, under strange circumstances.  His body wasn't identified until 2004.

Sam Marcy, founder of the Workers World Party, passed away February l, 1998.  The WWP posts selected works at:  www.workers.org/marcy/cd/  There was a 25th death anniversary event Sunday, February 5th at 2pm EST, "Global Class War: Lesson from Sam Marcy for Workers Struggles Today" -

And the related Socialist Unity Party posted this February 8th:  www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/02/08/socialist-unity-party-honors-sam-marcy/  I haven't seen anything from PSL.  WWP and related parties have been called "anti-revisionist," despite coming from a Trotskyist background.

Space Shuttle Columbia, the first space shuttle orbiter sent into space, was destroyed during reentry February 1, 2003, 20 years ago, due to damage from insulating foam that came off of the large brown external tank during launch.  The seven-member crew was killed.  Debris from the Columbia landed in East Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana.  NASA management might have been able to prevent the loss, but did not allow a search for damage while Columbia was in space.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was closest to the Earth February 1st.

February 2nd is Groundhog Day, Candlemas (Groundhog Day evolved from a Candlemas tradition), and World Wetlands Day.

Taíno leader Hatuey fought the Spanish conquistadores in Hispaniola and Cuba, but was burned at the stake February 2, 1512 near what is now Bayamo, Cuba (also near where one of Cuba's 19th century wars for independence began).  Before he was killed, a priest is supposed to have asked Hatuey if he would become a Christian and go to heaven, and he asked if the Spanish went to heaven.  Hearing the inevitable answer he said he would rather go to hell where the Spaniards and their cruelty would be absent.  He has been honored as a Hero of the Republic of Cuba.   

The Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo was signed February 2, 1848, ending the Mexican-American War and ceding a large part of Mexico to the USA, though I imagine that much of this territory was still controlled by Indian groups, who might have been living there for hundreds or thousands of years, and was only controlled to a limited extent by the Mexican government.

Bolshevik Mikhail Vasilyevich Frunze was born February 2, 1885 in what is now Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.  He was a military leader during the Russian Civil War, operating in Central Asia and Ukraine, was an ambassador to Turkey, a member of the CPSU's Central Committee and Politburo, and chair of the Revolutionary Military Council.  He passed away during a surgical operation October 31, 1925 in Moscow and was honored with burial in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.  Many things were named for him: Bishkek was called Frunze from 1926 to February 5, 1991, the pre-WWII battleship Poltava was renamed for him January 7, 1926,  the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow, etc.; and he is honored with a place in Turkey's Republic Monument in Taksim Square, Istanbul, as is Semyon Ivanovich Aralov, an ambassador born December 18, 1880.

The Fort Fisher Hermit, Robert E Harrill, was born February 2, 1893 in Shelby, NC.  He is officially supposed to have died of a heart attack June 3, 1972, but appears to have been murdered, possibly to remove an obstacle for "development."

Germany's 6th Army, occupying Stalingrad, surrendered February 2, 1943.  The Battle of Stalingrad was August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943, with pockets of resistance afterwards, and was a major turning point in WWII;  February 23, 1943 was marked as Red Army Day in the UK, while today media in the USA and UK often give the public the impression that WWII was mainly a victory won by the Americans and British (or even Ukraine apart from the USSR as a whole), though much or most of the fighting in Europe was on the Eastern front and it has been argued that Japan surrendered in the end because the Soviets entered the Pacific War, not because of the horror of the Allies' nuclear warfare.  See:  redphoenixnews.com/2023/02/02/the-battle-of-stalingrad-and-the-german-soviet-non-aggression-pact-of-1939/

World Wetlands Day is February 2nd, marking the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands February 2, 1971 in Ramsar, Iran - www.worldwetlandsday.org/

Iran's first home-made satellite, Omid (Persian for hope), a research and telecommunications satellite, was launched February 2, 2009.  It weighed about 60 pounds and 16" cube in shape.   

   

Former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's 2020 presidential campaign kicked off with an event February 2, 2019 in Hawaii.  She appeared to be running as a left Democrat and was attacked as if she were against the USA's international brigandage and aggression, but then issues came out, like her disappointing vote for a pro-Israel bill in Congress, etc and finally Gabbard endorsed Biden when she dropped out of the race March 19, 2020.  Bernie Sanders' appeal has also declined over the years.

According to Wikipedia traditional Japanese Setsubun is Thursday, February 3rd in 2023, and the next day is Risshun, the traditional beginning of spring.  

December wasn't so warm this year, and it was bitterly cold Christmas weekend, but January was unusually mild.  I'm trying to remember if I have seen any snow this winter.  Warm Decembers seem to have become more common, but I don't know what the statistics would indicate.  The coldest weather is usually in January, allowing snow and ice to linger and thick ice to seal waterways.  In recent decades significant snow and ice has fallen between December and early March.

The Durham City Council approved 55-Hopson around now in 2022 [the final, second (?) hearing was February 7th], and many acres of mass grading soon began; surveying and some clearing began prior to the approval.  [The public comment period for the related extension of Hopson Road to Grandale ended February 22nd in 2022, and it was revealed that the extension of Grandale Road in Chatham County is also being planned.  It was reported that bobcats, coyotes, maybe otters, turkeys, woodcocks, wood ducks, eagles, red-headed woodpeckers, maybe nightjars, many green treefrogs and other herptofauna, a high density of fireflies, etc. live in this 'rural' and partially protected area along Northeast Creek, but will these all remain after what the members of the City Council and road planners approved is finished?  The new elementary school nearby to the west, by a very large power substation and the Tobacco Trail, seems to be finished and maybe, hopefully, the possible pink ladyslipper orchids, white vetch, nesting nightjars, and abandoned beaver pond with alders and frequented by nesting indigo buntings were left mostly alone.]

The Communist Party of Vietnam was founded through the merging of a few groups February 3-7, 1930 in Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Aafia Siddiqui was convicted February 3, 2010 and sentenced to 86 years of Federal imprisonmen and is held [n Fort Worth's Federal Medical Center, Carswell.  She was born March 2, 1972 in Karachi, Pakistan.  

January 15, 2022 Malik Faisal Akram, an allegedly mentally ill native-born British citizen of Pakistani ethnicity, held four people hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, near Ft. Worth, seeking Siddiqui's release.  He also falsely claimed to have a bomb.  Akram released one hostage and the rest safely escaped later, after which an FBI Hostage Resuce Team entered the building and killed Akram.  His two teenage sons and two men were arrested in the UK.

February 3, 2023 it was announced that Rachel Martin will be leaving NPR's Morning Edition after this week or the 6th, but is remaining with NPR, including Up Next.  The show has had staff some turnover recently.

   

"Big Bill" Haywood, a founder of the Industrial Workers of the World and at one time a leader of the Socialist Party of America, was born February 4, 1869 in Salt Lake City.  He was charged under the Espionage Act of 1917 and in 1921 sought refuge in the USSR, where he died May 18, 1928.  Half of his ashes are in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis and the other half in the Haymarket Martyr's Monument in Chicago.   

Astronomer Clyde William Tombaugh was born February 4, 1906 in Streator, Illinois and discovered Pluto February 18, 1930.  He passed away January 17, 1997 in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  Some of his ashes are onboard NASA's New Horizons probe, which flew by Pluto in 2015.  The "Heart of Pluto," imaged in unprecedented detail by that mission, has been officially named the Tombaugh Regio.  

 

Rosa Parks was born February 4, 1913 in Tuskgee, Alabama.

 

The Yalta Conference between Churchill, FDR, and Stalin met February 4 - 11, 1945 in Yalta, Crimea on the USSR's Black Sea coast.

Novelist and writer Patricia Highsmith was born January 19, 1921 in Fort Worth, Texas and passed away February 4, 1995 in Locarno, Switzerland.  She is also noted for her personal diaries or journals.

Hugo Chavez's Revolutionary Bolivarian Movement-200, founded December 17, 1982, attempted to overthrow Venezuelan president Carlos Andres Perez February 4-5, 1992.  There was a second attempt at a military coup November 27th.

World Cancer Day is February 4th.

The advanced F-22's first kill was a lost Chinese research "airship"/weather balloon or a sinister Chinese spy balloon, violating US sovereignty, until it was shot down at great expense as it was leaving US territory off of  South Carolina February 4th.  The US media portrays it as China accidentally or intentionally derailing an attempt to cool US-China tensions, but it could be asked whether a faction in the US government created an incident to worsen relations.  I heard recently that a military official expects the US war with China to start in 2025, and earlier testimony to Congress predicted war by something like 2028, rather than decades from now.  Consider the comments at:  www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/02/chinese-spy-balloon-over-the-us-an-aerospace-expert-explains-how-the-balloons-work-and-what-they-can-see.html 

February 5, 2003 Colin Powell spoke before the UN Security Council, claiming that Iraq had mobile biological weapon labs and was developing nuclear weapons, helping pave the way for the war the US and UK launched in late March.  During press conferences by Powell and John Negroponte a tapestry copy of Pablo Picasso's Guernica hanging in the UN headquarters was covered with a blue curtain, allegedly just for the aesthetics of TV broadcasts.  

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will appear near the bright star Capella in Auriga the Charioteer, February 5th but the Moon will be bright.

American revolutionary Harry Haywood was born February 6, 1898 in South Omaha, Nebraska.  He was a leader of the CPUSA, but clashed with the revisionist leadership during the Khrushchev era.  He was a leader in the Comintern during the 20's and wrote Negro Liberation (1948), arguing that the Black Belt was an oppressed nation with the right to self-determination.  After leaving the CPUSA, he was a leader of the Provisional Organizing Committee for a Communist Party and later the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist).  He is known for Black Bolshevik:  Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist (1978) [available from Red Star Publishers].  He fought in WWI, the Spanish Civil War, and WWII, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery after his death January 4, 1985. 

The Seattle General Strike began February 6 - 11th, 1919:  www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/08/the-seattle-general-strike-a-100-year-legacy/

Cuban revolutionary Camilo Cienfuegos, the Hero of Yaguajay, was born February 6, 1932 and is thought to have died in plane crash over the ocean October 28, 1959.  Cuba's Order of Cienfuegos award is named for him. 


Novelist Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812.

Disgruntled former IRS accountant Robert W Pickett shot at the White House, with George W Bush inside, February 7, 2001; Pickett was shot and arrested.

Biden's 2022 State of the Union Address was February 7th.

Abraham H Galloway was born as a slave in Smithville (today's Southport), NC February 8, 1837, but escaped in 1857.  He was involved in the Civil War, rewriting the NC constitution, and was a state senator 1868-1869.  He passed away September 1. 1870 in Wilmington due to fever and jaundice.

Albanian revolutionary Nexhmije Xhuglini was born February 8, 1921 in Bitolj, today part of Macedonia.  She fought as a partisan in the war to liberate Albania from Italian and German occupation during WWII and served in leading positions in the Party of Labor of Albania, the Democratic Front, the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies, the Albanian Women's League, the National Assembly of Albania, and other bodies during her political career.  She was imprisoned for 5 years after the counterrevolution.  Apparently she was arrested on December 10, 1991, Human Rights Day, and charged with embezzlement, sentenced in January 1993, and released in January 1997.  She was married to PLA First Secretary Enver Hoxha and she is supposed to have been the oldest living member of the PLA leadership before passing away February 26, 2020.  For more information on the Kombinat (Factory) cemetery in Tirana where the the Hoxhas rest (Enver Hoxha had been buried in the National Martyrs' Cemetery, but was disinterred by the counterrevolutionaires) see:   michaelharrison.org.uk/2021/12/nexhmije-and-enver-together-in-kombinat/ [See also:  michaelharrison.org.uk/2021/02/february-the-8th-2021-the-centenary-of-the-birth-of-nexhmije-xhuglini-hoxha/ ] [For some of her works see:  november8ph.ca/catalogue/ etc.] [ www.mltranslations.org/Albania/index.htm , ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html and ml-today.com/?s=nexhmije  ]

The Charonne Massacre was February 8, 1962 at a Paris Metro station, where the police killed nine trade unionists demonstrating against a French terrorist group during the Algerian War.  

The Orangeburg Massacre was February 8, 1968 at South Carolina State University, killing 3 and injuring 27.

According to Wikipedia, the first and only time a submarine has sunk another submarine while both were underwater happened February 9, 1945, when British HMS Venturer sank U-864 off Norway.  U-864 was carrying jet engine and missile guidance system components, as well as mercury, to aid German ally Japan. 

The first test flight of a Boeing 747 was February 9., 1969 in Washington state (?).  

Hernán Cortés, disobeying the governor, set sail from Cuba February 10, 1519 on the expedition that would result in the defeat of the Aztecs and the colonization of Mexico.  

Playwright Bertolt Brecht was born February 10, 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. 

The Battle of Saltley Gate was February 8, 1972:  michaelharrison.org.uk/2021/02/10th-february-1972-victory-at-the-battle-of-saltley-gate/

World Pulses Day, devoted to important food plants such as kidney beans, lima beans, black-eyed peas, chickpeas, broad beans, and lentils, is February 10th.  The UN General Assembly declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will appear near Mars, currently very bright and high in the sky at night, February 10 - 11.

The Civil War Battle of Wilmington was February 11-22, 1865, resulting in the Federal capture of the City, as the War was ending.

Nuclear physicist Leo Szilard was born February 11, 1898 in Budapest, at the time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Very similar to Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi in Tunisia, 27-year-old Moroccan street vendor Nourredine Adnane set himself on fire February 11, 2011, following threats of suicide, protesting the seizure of his goods and humiliation in Palmero, Sicily, in Italy.  Earlier on January 21st an unnamed 65-year-old man died a few days after setting himself on fire in Samtah, Jizan, Saudi Arabia, reportedly a first in Saudi Arabia (according to Wikipedia), and possibly over the barriers to becoming a Saudi national. 

The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is February 11th:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks

World Radio Day is February 13th:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks

Charles Darwin was born February 12, 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, UK.  There are Darwin Day events, such as at the NCBG, around his birthday today. 

British and American bombers targeted Dresden, capital of the German state of Saxony, February 13 - 15, 1945 with high-explosive and incendiary bombs, causing a firestorm and killing up to 25,000 people.  Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the bombing as a POW. 

The Nepalese Civil War began February 13, 1996.

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will cross in front of the Hyades star cluster in Taurus the Bull February 13 - 15.

Valentine's Day is Friday, February 14th, and is controversial from a left or nationalist point of view in some countries, and from a right or religious point of view elsewhere, according to Wikipedia.  Apparently the 14th day of each month has romantic allusions in the ROK, and April 14th is Black Day, for people who didn't have a valentine.

The Polish-Soviet War began February 14, 1919 and ended in October 1920.  The March 18, 1921 Peace of Riga agreement established the Soviet-Polish border that held during the interwar period.    

Maurice Audin, an ethnic French member of the Algerian Communist Party and a mathematics assistant at the University of Algiers, was born February 14, 1932.  The French Army seized him at his apartment June 11, 1957, during Algeria's war for independence, and then used his home as a trap for others.  He was taken elsewhere and tortured to death, something French President Macron acknowledged in September 2018.  This was not an isolated case. 

The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held February 14-25, 1956 and Khrushchev's "Secret Speech" was February 25th. 

The Trotskyist World Socialist Web Site, published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, began February 14, 1998.  

Allegedly to prevent the potential of injuries from a toxic hydrazine leak on a malfunctioning surveillance satellite, the US Navy was ordered to destroy it with an anti-ballistic missile on February 14, 2008.  This also conveniently allowed the USA to test a space weapon.

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei was born February 15, 1564 in Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence.

[It was reported that what seemed to be pieces of flesh, liver, brain, and blood fell from a red cloud February 15, 1850 on the farm of Thomas Clarkson, 13 miles from Clinton, Sampson County, NC. The material fell across a span of 250-300 yards. The Clarkson children had been playing about 100 yards from the house and saw the shower, crying out “Mother, there is meat falling!” A scent or smell of blood was reported and a red liquid was dripping from the foliage. Samples are supposed to have been examined with a microscope in Fayetteville and confirmed to be flesh and blood. This was reported in the March 8, 1850 issue of the North Carolinian March 8, 1850, apparently not available online, but the incident is covered in Jerome Clark's Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America and covered briefly in Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States and in the book Weird Carolinias.

It is unclear if the site was actually in Sampson County. Clark says that the location 13 miles southeast of Clinton – which might be somewhere in the next county over, unless the south end of sort of heart-shaped Sampson County is meant. I think Weird Carolinias says the location was 13 miles southwest, but that could be inaccurate. That book also has quote comparing the red cloud to a “wind cloud” – a dustdevil or other cloud of dust?

A similar shower of flesh and blood from a red cloud was reported at a farm on Spring Creek, near Bairds Mills (near Lebanon), in Wilson County, Tennessee in August 1841 and along the Pamunkey River in Hanover County, Virginia on Good Friday 1850 (see below). The sky was clear when hundreds of pounds of thinly sliced meat edged with “fine black bristles” was supposed to have fallen over two acres in Los Nietos, California, in the Los Angeles area, August 1, 1869.]

Following an explosion, the USS Maine sank in Havana, Cuba February 15, 1898, killing 260 crew members.  The explosion was probably accidental, but became a spark for the Spanish-American War later that spring.  Military construction on Great Gull Island, New York during this war was a factor in the extinction of the Gull Island vole, discovered by science and then exterminated in a few months.  In 1962 the US military proposed various terrorist acts to justify war with Cuba (Operation Northwoods), including blowing up a US ship in Guantánamo Bay.

There were massive anti-war demonstrations globally February 15, 2003, against the US government's plan to attack and occupy Iraq, during the "War on Terror."  

A small asteroid exploded near Chelyabinsk, Russia February 15, 2013.  The vastly larger Tunguska event over Siberia was June 30, 1908

World Pangolin Day is February 15th (the third Saturday of the month):  www.pangolins.org/world-pangolin-day/

Korean statesman Kim Jong Il was born February 16, 1941, when Korea was a colony of Japan, and passed away December 17, 2011 in Pyongyang, capital of resolutely independent DPR Korea, though the struggle for independence from Japan and the first battles with US imperialism were led by his father, Kim Il Sung; some of his works and other documents are online at:  www.marxists.org/archive/kim-jong-il/index.htm , november8ph.ca/catalogue/ , michaelharrison.org.uk/the-democratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/ , and might be available in print at UNC's Davis Library.

February 17, 1864 Confederate submarine Hunley sank the USS Housatonic outside of Charleston Harbor using a spar torpedo (a pole tipped with an explosive), becoming the first submarine to sink an enemy ship, though the Hunley was not underwater during the attack.  It was not meant to be a suicide mission, but the eight volunteers operating the Hunley were killed, possibly instantaneously.  Five crew members were killed on the USS Housatonic.  The Hunley was raised in 2000 and can be seen at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in Charleston.  There was a movie about it on TNT.  Apparently there were other Confederate submarines, and a Union submarine was lost off Cape Hatteras.  A submarine was even deployed in the Revolutionary War, but it was unsuccessful.    

Robert Kenneth Preston, a private in the Army, stole a Bell UH-1B Iroquois (Huey) helicopter from Tipton Field, near Fort Meade, Maryland, and joyrode around Washington, before landing on the White House's South Lawn February 17, 1974. There was a hail of bullets from the Secret Service, but Preston was only lightly wounded. Preston was court-martialed and sentenced to a year in prison, with time served, and fined $2400 dollars.

China invaded Vietnam February 17, 1979 in retaliation for Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia (called Democratic Kampuchea at the time) to topple the Khmer Rouge government.  China, the USA, Thailand, and other countries supported the Khmer Rouge against Vietnam, which was an ally of the USSR.  The war ended by March 16, 1979, but there was sporadic fighting afterward, such as in May-June 1981, April 1984, and a naval battle over Johnston South Reef in the Spratly Islands March 14, 1988.  Relations later improved and agreement was reached on the land border between Vietnam and China, while the US government seeks to exploit disagreements over ocean boundaries.  [Reactions from Enver Hoxha ( november8ph.ca/2023/02/17/the-chinese-leadership-headed-by-deng-xiaoping-have-launched-a-military-attack-on-vietnam/ ) and Fidel Castro ( november8ph.ca/2023/02/17/speech-at-the-national-event-of-solidarity-with-vietnam-and-condemnation-of-chinese-aggression/ )]

The Great Backyard Bird Count begins February 17th.

  

Clyde W Tombaugh discovered Pluto February 18, 1930 and it was announced March 13th.  Pluto was considered the 9th planet, but the International Astronomical Union now classifies it as a dwarf planet (the largest yet discovered) and the first member of the Kuiper Belt to be discovered.  Some researchers argue that the IAU decision was wrong on scientific grounds.  Pluto orbits so far from out that it has not orbited completely around the Sun even once since 1930.  A year on Pluto is equal to almost 250 of Earth's years.  

President Ford signed Executive Order 11905 February 18, 1976, among other things banning "political assassination."  Similar executive orders were signed by Carter on January 24, 1978 and by Reagan on December 4, 1981.

February 18, 2010 Andrew Joseph Stack III crashed a Piper Dakota small airplane into an IRS office in the 4-story Echelon complex in Austin, Texas. IRS Revenue Officer Group Manager Vernon Hunter was killed and 13 others were injured, two with critical injuries. Stack also burned his house in North Austin before the attack.

Republic of Kosovo or Kosova declared independence February 17, 2008. 

Soviet astronomer Klim Ivanovych Churyumov was born February 19, 1937 and passed away October 14, 2016.

Under Khrushchev Crimea and nearby areas was transferred from Russia to Ukraine within the USSR February 19, 1954, but there have been questions about the legality.

Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping passed away February 19, 1997.  He was born August 22, 1904.  His predecessor, Hua Guofeng, was born February 16, 1921 and passed away August 20, 2008. 

Astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born February 19, 1473.

The WWII Battle of Iwo Jima was February 19 - March 26, 1945. 

Construction of the Soviet space station Mir (Peace or World in Russian) began February 19, 1986.  Until 2010 the record for longest continuous human presence in space was the habitation of Mir and some individual cosmonauts spent at least a year on the station.  Mir was retired and deorbited into the South Pacific in late March 2001.

According to the website Prisoner Solidarity, anti-imperialist activist Tsutomu Shirosaki might be released from prison in Japan February 20, 2027:  prisonersolidarity.com/prisoner/tsutomu-shirosaki

Hungarian revolutionary Béla Kun (Béla Kohn) was born February 20, 1886 in a Transylvanian village that was part of Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time and is now in Romania.  Some of his writings are posted at:  www.marxists.org/archive/kun-bela/index.htm and otheraspect.org/bela-kun-and-hungarian-soviet-republic/

Frederick Douglass passed away February 20, 1895 in Washington, DC.

The World Day of Social Justice is February 20th:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks

The annual National Invasive Species Awareness Week will be February 20 - 26 in 2023:  www.nisaw.org/ 

The last known Carolina parakeet died February 21, 1918 at the Cincinnati Zoo, apparently in the same place where the last captive passenger pigeon, Martha, died September 1, 1914.  He was named Incas and died months after his mate Lady Jane.  The last known wild bird was killed in Okeechobee County, Florida in 1904, though sightings were reported in southern Georgia's Okefenokee Swamp in 1937 and in swamps near the Santee River in South Carolina in 1938.  Off course the Santee was dammed the next year.  It would seem like Carolina parakeets could be cloned with DNA from preserved specimens.     

Jeffrey "Jeff" M Shaara, author of the Gettysburg novel Killer Angels, was born February 21, 1952 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but grew up in Tallahassee, Florida.

A chapter of the Deacons for Defense and Justice was founded February 21, 1965 in Bogalusa, Louisiana. 

Two Israeli F-4 Phantom II fighter jets shot down Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 February 21, 1973 over part of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula occupied by Israel, killing 108 people, with 5 survivors.

Bob Sheldon, founder of leftist Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill, was killed the evening of February 21, 1991, and the case remains unsolved.  The police concluded that this happened during a robbery, but others think it was a political murder.   

February 21st is also Red Books Day, according to the People's Forum in New York City [This is the 175th anniversary of the Communist Manifesto:  peoplesdispatch.org/2023/02/21/red-books-day-2023-fight-the-rise-of-the-right-read-a-red-book/ ].

February 22, 1974 Samuel Joseph Byck attempted to hijack an airliner at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport for a 9/11-like attack, to kill President Nixon. Byck killed a police officer and a pilot, but was wounded and then killed himself while the DC-9 was still on the ground. Byck was born January 30, 1930 in South Philadelphia.

Nature writer Hal Borland (Harold Glen Borland) passed away February 22, 1978.

English official and noted diarist Samuel Pepys was born February 23, 1633 in London, and passed away May 26, 1703 in nearby Clapham, Surrey.

According to Wikipedia, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the first agreement to lease Guantánamo Bay from Cuba February 23, 1903.  This was one of the demands of the Platt Amendment giving the US control of Cuba in exchange for ending the direct military occupation that followed the Spanish-American War.  The Platt Amendment was added to Cuba's constitution verbatim December 25, 1901 and the same demands were included in a treaty signed May 22, 1903.  Today the US government attempts to hide some of its crimes, such as extrajudicial detention and torture, by carrying them out on stolen Cuban territory. 

Red Army Day/Soviet Army and Navy Day is February 23rd.  It was replaced by Defender of the Fatherland Day in Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, South Ossetia, Tajikistan, Transnistria, and Turkmenistan, also on the 23rd, while in Kazakhstan it is May 7th, around WWII Victory Day.  

The Revolutionary War Battle of Haw River was February 24, 1781 in what is now Alamance County, NC.

Russia entered the civil war in Ukraine February 24, 2022, though pro-Russian forces had occupied the Crimean Peninsula in late February 2014 and it was later annexed by Russia.  This followed the overthrow of the elected Ukrainian government by pro-US forces.  Under Khrushchev Crimea and nearby areas was transferred from Russia to Ukraine, both Soviet republics at the time, February 19, 1954, but there have been questions about the legality.

[It was reported that a shower of blood fell from a cloudless sky in the middle of the day on February 25, 1884 in New Hope Township, on the central eastern edge of Chatham County, NC. The Weekly Raleigh Register specifies that the location was near “the old stage road between Pittsboro and Raleigh, in the fork of New Hope Creek [River] and Haw River,” near “Cyprett's bridge over New Hope.” An 1870 map of Chatham County (available at UNC's Wilson Library and the Chatham County Historical Association sells copies www.chathamhistory.org/Sys/Store/Products/267580 ) shows an unnamed bridge over the New Hope River just upstream from White Oak Creek, on the very north edge of squareish New Hope Township. UNC chemistry professor Francis Preston Venable's account says that the site was “about a quarter of a mile from the Raleigh and Pittsboro road.” The soil was described as sandy, which might indicate that it was near a waterway. The book Weird Carolinas puts the location near Parkers Creek, something like a mile east of the current Mount Gilead Church (this seems to be their website: mountgileadbaptist.org/ ), which is on Mount Gilead Church Road by Red Hill, which would seem to put the location of the blood fall on private land west of Big Woods Road. I thought it might be in the gameland around the Jordan Lake reservoir or underwater, and maybe a bit further south.

The wife of Kit Lasater, a black tenant farmer on land owned by Silas Beckwith, was outside her home, near a plowed field, and saw something red fall and heard rain, but the shower had already ended by the time she looked up. The wind was calm; Venable thought that there might have been a slight breeze from the south or southwest. Many people came to see the wonder. An SA Holleman visited the location the next morning and said that a rectangular area about 50 by 70 feet had been hit by drops the size of a small pea to the size of a man's finger, the larger drops having coagulated while the smaller ones had been absorbed by the soil. The Chatham Record said the area was about 60' around while the Weekly Raleigh Register said it was an area of 25 – 30 square yards. A Dr Robinson who lived nearby studied the material and thought that it really was blood and said that it smelled like blood. Dr Venable, a future UNC president and namesake of UNC's old chemistry building, and buried on the campus ( www.ncpedia.org/biography/venable-francis-preston ), analyzed samples and concluded that the material was blood, though the samples had been gathered and delivered by third parties. Venable visited the site himself, but not until almost three weeks later, after “several heavy rains.” He still found one or two stains on a fence and interviewed Mrs Lasater.

Several years ago I was unable to locate any Lasaters who could talk about the incident (Lassiter is probably a much more common name, and I tried contacting Lassiters as well) and no Beckwiths. In 1870 there was a Lasater's Crossroads north of White Oak Creek, around where NC 751 is today, in Williams Township, and a few individual Lasater homesteads are shown on the 1870 map. Silas Beckwith is supposed to have lived February 19, 1815 – August 16, 1882, in which case he wasn't alive when this happened and maybe that is why the Lasaters were living there ( www.findagrave.com/memorial/9556160/silas-beckwith ). There was an SM (Sire Manly?) Beckwith who lived November 1, 1841 to April 21, 1907 ( www.findagrave.com/memorial/9556158/sire-manly-beckwith ). These graves are supposed to be in the Beckwith or Council Family Cemetery, in New Hope Township, on the south side of Highway 64, today's Pittsboro to Raleigh Road, a tenth of a mile west of John Horton Road (SR 1745), east of Jordan Lake and Wilsonville, at the intersection of 64 and Farrington Road: cemeterycensus.com/nc/chat/cem370.htm and www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1994787/beckwith-cemetery  I've been by these places many times without knowing that Silas Beckwith was buried right there beside 64, and I've been in the area east of Mount Gilead Church.

All of the newspaper accounts referenced by the NCpedia ( www.ncpedia.org/chatham-blood-shower-1884 ) have been digitized and are available at: www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/#advsearch in addition to an article on page 3 of the March 6, 1884 edition of the Chatham Record. Dr Venable's report, published in the Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society (1883 – 1884 Volume 1), is online at: dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/jncas/id/999 and was reprinted in some of the newspaper accounts above. There are also accounts in Jerome Clark's Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America , Weird Carolinas , and on the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources' blog: www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2016/02/25/chatham-county-blood-shower

Also in the area there is an abandoned underground government communications facility, built for World War III, near the end of the Cold War. Maybe it is on Big Hole Road, west of Jordan Lake, off of Big Woods Road. There was an article in the News and Observer a few years ago.]

February 25, 2019 the International Court of Justice made a non-binding determination that the UK had illegally separated the Chagos Archipelago from what was then its colony of Mauritius in the western Indian Ocean:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Garcia  and  www.bbc.com/news/uk-47358602  The Chagossians were driven from their homes, such as by killing their pets, not allowing people who left for medical treatment back in, limiting vital imports, etc.  The UK gave the islands to the US for military use, such as the base on Diego Garcia, from which the US can carry out its adventures in the Middle East and possibly carry out torture and rendition as well; the US also dumped waste.  In 2010 the UK tried to maintain its control by declaring the ocean around the islands a marine reserve.  Supposedly the UK will return the islands someday, when they are no longer needed by the military, similar to the declaration that the nuclear powers will disarm, at some undetermined time in the future.  The UK has been losing its case in international bodies and began negotiatings with Mauritius November 3, 2022, though apparently the UK and Mauritius have agreed that the UK and US military base on Diego Garcia will remain in operation.

William Z Foster, the CPUSA's General Secretary between 1945 and 1957, was born February 25, 1881.

The WWII UFO-related Battle of Los Angeles or the Great Los Angeles Air Raid was February 24 – 25, 1942, and caused a few deaths and property damage.

Biden first bombed targets in  Syrian territory February 25, 2021.  Unlike Russia, Iran, and Lebanese Hezbollah the USA, Turkey, Israel, etc. are operating in Syria without the authorization of the internationally recognized government.

Graham, NC town commissioner and constable Wyatt Outlaw was killed February 26, 1870.  After state senator John W Stephens was killed May 21st in Caswell County Governor William Holden declared Alamance and Caswell counties insurrectionary and the Kirk-Holden War against the KKK began, with actions in places such as Yanceyville, Caswell Co. and in Pittsboro, Chatham Co., which the KKK apparently intended to seize.  The state of insurrection was declared over by November, but the newly Democrat-dominated legislature impeached Governor Holden in December 1870.  Tennessee Unionist Colonel George Washington Kirk, who led the 3rd North Carolina Mounted Infantry or Kirk's Raiders during the Civil War, commanded the militia fighting the KKK forces.  

Robert Franklin Williams, born February 26, 1925 in Monroe, North Carolina, was president of the local NAACP chapter and formed the NRA-affiliated Black Armed Guard.  He wrote Negroes with Guns (1962).  He spent some time in Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and China.  He died October 15, 1996 in Baldwin, Michigan. 

The night of February 26 - 27, 1991 the US, British, Canadian, and French forces intercepted Iraqi forces retreating from Kuwait, creating the famous Highway of Death.  A few years ago the videogame Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare was condemned for having a "Highway of Death," created by a Russian attack on fleeing civilians in fictional Urzikstan.  Wikipedia also mentions that players can use white phosphorus as a weapon, illegally.  As we know from the mainstream "Western" media, the US only violates the rules of war inadvertently and intermittently, unlike Russia and other countries the US government (joined by the "free" and "independent" media) has problems with. 

The World Trade Center bombing was February 26, 1993, 30 years ago.

Trayvon Martin, born February 5, 1995, was killed by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida February 26, 2012.

Albanian revolutionary Nexhmije Xhuglini Hoxha was born February 8, 1921 in Bitolj, today part of recently renamed North Macedonia, formerly a Yugoslav republic and having a significant ethnic Albanian minority (see above and previous calendars).  She passed away February 26, 2020 at age 99.  Some of her memoirs are translated at:  ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html and some short writings are posted at www.mltranslations.org/Albania/index.htm  She has a daughter Pranvera; two sons, Sokol and Ilir (born March 31, 1949 and also imprisoned for years after the counterrevolution); and several grandchildren. 

Some left statements and generally scathing and similar articles from the "Western" mainstream media, especially those from the US:

ml-today.com/?s=nexhmije

theredphoenixapl.org/2020/02/26/a-bright-red-star-has-joined-the-heavens/ 

revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv25n1/NHObituary.pdf


www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/world/europe/nexhmije-hoxha-dead.html

www.reuters.com/article/us-albania-hoxha-idUSKCN20K30K

www.france24.com/en/20200226-nexhmije-hoxha-widow-of-albania-s-communist-tyrant-dies-aged-99 

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/26/nexhmije-hoxha-widow-of-albanias-dictator-dies-aged-99

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/02/nexhmije-hoxha-obituary

livre.fnac.com/a2422752/Fahri-Balliu-La-femme-du-diable-Nexhmije-Hoxha-veuve-du-dictateur-albanais-Enver-Hoxha


Translated statement from the War Veterans Association of the NLA (posted on the For a People's Democracy Facebook group: www.facebook.com/groups/312850322214080/ ; there is also an untranslated announcement from Ilir Hoxha there): 

"WAR VETERANS ASSOCIATION OF THE NATIONAL LIBERATION ARMY



Died comrade Nexhmije Hoxha

A young girl born in Saint Naum (Bitola), raised in Dibra, married in Gjirokastra, with a more sensational life in Tirana, where she supported the Gervalla family, left behind one [major] Nationwide Works, testament to be realized from generations of dedication for National Unity ...

Glory!


War Veterans Association of the National Liberation Army

Fazli Veliu, Chairman
Tetova, February, 2020"

(I assume the Gervalla family refers to brothers Jusuf and Bardhosh Gervalla, Kosovar Albanian activists assassinated in West Germany January 18, 1982, and Tetova is a city in Macedonia with a large ethnic Albanian population.)

The Revolutionary War Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge was February 27, 1776 near in Pender County, near Wilmington; there is supposed to be an annual reenactment. 

The Venezuelan Caracazo protests and riots began February 27, 1989 in Guarenas and lasted until March 8th.

International Polar Bear Day is around February 27th ( polarbearsinternational.org/get-involved/international-polar-bear-day )

February 27, 2012 WikiLeaks began releasing leaked internal emails from the Austin, Texas-based private intelligence company Stratfor, titled the Global Intelligence Files.

Apparently the only Antonov An-225 Mriya in existence, a gigantic Soviet cargo plane built in Ukraine in the 80's  to transport Buran, the Soviet space shuttle, was destroyed at Antonov Airport near the Ukrainian capital by February 27, 2022.  This one and only An-225 was still in use and is supposed to have been the heaviest aircraft ever and had the widest wingspan of any aircraft in operation, and was the first Soviet aircraft with a Ukrainian name.  An article from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum plays up Ukrainian nationalism in service to US imperialism in competition with Russian imperialism, but according to the Wikipedia entry the plane's pilot blamed management for not following advice from NATO about relocating the aircraft to Germany.  There are plans to build a new An-225 or restore this one (with what funding?).

The US government attack on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas began February 28, 1993, 30 years, and the siege came to a fiery end April 19th.

 

The elected government of Haiti was toppled February 28, 2004, with the involvement of the USA, Canada, and France.  Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide says US special forces forcible flew him to exile in the Central African Republic as paramilitaries approached the capital.  This was the second coup to overthrow Aristide and there were several assassination attempts. 

After March 1983 it looked like the city of Rancho Palos Verdes (in Los Angeles County, California) had (intentionally?) killed off the last population of the Palos Verde blue butterfly (a subspecies of the more abundant silvery blue), but in 1994 another population was discovered, though it differed from the others in having an additional larval foodplant.  A  conservation program was started.  The Palos Verde blue was classified as endangered July 2, 1980.  Rancho Palos Verde was charged with violating the Endangered Species Act in 1987, but the case was dismissed because at the time only a person could be charged with this crime (this error was fixed in 1988). 

www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/esa_works/profile_pages/PalosVerdesBlueButterfly.html

www.urbanwildlands.org/pvb.html www.butterfliesandmoths.org/species/Glaucopsyche-lygdamus terranealife.com/rediscovering-palos-verdes-blue-butterfly/ butterflywebsite.com/endangered-butterflies.cfm

The Xerces blue was driven to extinction by military construction near San Francisco in 1943.  The species is remembered in the name of the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group ( www.xerces.org ).  The Xerces and Palos Verde blues are in the same genus and their caterpillars eat some of the same plant species.  Militarism today contributes to climate change and other problems, threatening to kill off many species this century, even if some endangered species, such as the St. Francis' satyr butterfly and the red-cockaded woodpecker in North Carolina, have unwittingly been temporarily sheltered on military bases.  Rare wildlife has also found shelter along militarized borders, such as inside the DMZ across Korea.  In 2020 supposedly "liberal" or "progressive" Democratic Party-ruled California was allowing a fish, the delta smelt, to go extinct due to human actions (see for example:  www.counterpunch.org/2020/01/24/will-the-extinction-of-delta-smelt-be-governor-gavin-newsoms-environmental-legacy/ ).

German botanist and painter Catharina Helena Dörrien was born March 1, 1717.

Korea's March 1st Movement for the end of Japanese colonial rule began March 1, 1919 with a reading of the Korean Declaration of Independence in Seoul, and was brutally suppressed.  See:  koryogroup.com/blog/the-march-1st-movement

The Mongolian People's Revolution of 1921 began March 1st. 

March 1 is Remembrance Day (Nuclear Victims' Day and Nuclear Survivors' Day) in the Marshall Islands, remembering those impacted by US nuclear tests, conducted when the islands were under direct US control (today there is a "free association" agreement and dependence on the US).

Castle Bravo, the USA's biggest nuclear weapon test and the fifth largest ever, was March 1, 1954 in the Bikini Atoll, today part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.  It was a test of a new type of fusion-based hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb, more powerful than the fission-based atom bombs dropped on Japan.  The US tested the first hydrogen bomb at a nearby atoll in 1952, escalating the arms race that could lead to human extinction.  The Castle Bravo test was much more powerful than the physicists expected and radioactive fallout fell on several islands, a US Navy ship, and on up to 100 fishing boats outside of the area that had previously been announced as dangerous, including the Japanese bonito fishing ship Daigo Fukuryū Maru.  Its 23 crewmen contracted radiation sickness and one died September 23rd, though not directly from radiation sickness, and this caused a an international incident.  The fallout also sickened nearby islanders and US military personnel, and blanketed the world in smaller amounts.  Bikini was left contaminated, though there is an effort at remediation.  The atoll's original inhabitants were shuffled around to different islands and at one point were left starving to death.  Testing destroyed some of the small islands, but there is rich marine life there today.  A quote in In a Dark Time might refer to a test at Bikini Atoll.   

There was a shooting in the US Capitol March 1, 1954, a bombing in 1971:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_political_violence_in_Washington,_D.C.

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), similar to BSE, was first found in a deer in North Carolina last sometime March:  www.ncwildlife.org/hunting/chronic-wasting-disease 

Around March 1st glittering Venus and Jupiter will appear close together in the western sky after sunset (a conjunction).  Mars and the waxing Moon were very close together the night of February 27th.  Comet ZTF might still be visible in the southern sky, roughly near Orion.  Near the end of March there will be conjunctions of the Moon and Uranus, Venus and Uranus and of Jupiter and Mercury.

The Comintern, the third international organization of revolutionary communist and socialist parties and organizations, was founded during a congress held in Moscow March 2 - 6, 1919, with 34 groups participating.

A prototype Concorde supersonic airliner first took to the air March 2, 1969.

The Battle of Zhenbao or Damansky Island, part of a long border dispute between China and the USSR, was March 2-17, 1969. 

Aafia Siddiqui was born March 2, 1972 in Karachi, Pakistan.  She was convicted February 3, 2010 and sentenced to 86 years of Federal imprisonment and is held [n Fort Worth's Federal Medical Center, Carswell.  

March 2, 1978 Vladimír Remek became the first person in space not from the USSR or USAand he is the only cosmonaut from Czechoslovakia, called the CSSR at the time.  He represented his country ethnically, having a Czech mother and a Slovak father, and is considered the first astronaut from the EU.  Through the Interkosmos program, he was part of the Soyuz 28 mission March 2 - 10, 1978 to the USSR's Salyut 6 space station.  He represented the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia in the European Parliament 2004 - 2013 and was appointed Czech ambassador to Russia in January 2014.  Asteroid 2552 Remek is named after him.  

March 2nd is Tree Planting Day in DPR Korea.  This is similar to Arbor Day and Earth Day and was instituted by Kim Jong Il.  For more information see:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbor_Day#Korea  nsnbc.me/2013/03/02/tree-planting-day-in-the-dpr-korea-embodies-socialist-and-traditional-asian-cultural-values

National Reading Day is March 2nd or the closest school day to that date, marking Dr Seuss' (Theodor Seuss "Ted" Geisel's) birth in 1904, and was started in 1997 by the National Education Association.

 

Bernie Saunders' first 2020 presidential campaign rally was March 2nd at Brooklyn College.

March 2, 2004 the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta probe, with lander Philae, on a mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.  [It was discovered by Soviet astronomers Klim Ivanovych Churyumov (February 19, 1937 - October 14, 2016) and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko in 1969.  March 2, 2004 the European Space Agency sent a mission to the comet, with the probe Rosetta becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a comet and Philae becoming the first lander on a comet.  Rosetta was also the first spacecraft to rely on solar power while about as far from the Sun as Jupiter (deep space missions are usually powered by the decay of radioactive elements, leading to some anti-nuclear opposition, as with NASA's Cassini).] 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was discovered March 2, 2022.  It was at perihelion January 12, 2023.

The traditional celebration Hinamatsuri, Doll Festival, or Girls' Day (apparently once known as the Peach Festival) is March 3rd in Japan.

[It was reported that “half a wagonload of pieces of fresh meat, sliced into thin strips, some of it quite bloody” fell from a clear sky over an area 300' by 150' on the farm of Allan Crouch in Olympia Springs, in Bath County, northeast Kentucky on March 3, 1876. Mrs Couch witnessed the fall while outside making soap. This is referenced in Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States and Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America. It was reported that a similar fall of meat, said to resemble and taste like beef, fell from a clear sky near Gastonia, in Gaston County, NC November 11, 1876 (from Unnatural Phenomena; many things have been reported to have fallen near Charlotte), and something like meat fell in California's Santa Clara County/San Jose area, near San Francisco in June 1869.]

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, signed March 3, 1918 in what is now Belarus, ended hostilities between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers during WWI, leading to several countries being created by the occupiers or declaring independence and other territorial concessions by Russia.

World Wildlife Day is March 3rd: www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks 

Norman Bethune (Henry Norman Bethune) was born March 4, 1890 in Gravehurst, Ontario, Canada.  In the 30's he joined the Communist Party of Canada.  He served as a surgeon on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War and with the Communist Party of China during the Sino-Japanese War.  He contracted blood poisoning and died November 12, 1939.  He has long been well-known in China (for example, Mao wrote In Memory of Norman Bethune and China's highest medical honor is called the Norman Bethune Medal), and more recently in his native Canada and Spain.  There is a revolutionary song in French, probably Canadian, "Chanson de Norman Bethune."

In Memory of Norman Bethune is online at: 

marx2mao.com/Mao/NB39.html

www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_25.htm

Following Khrushchev's so-called Secret Speech condemning Stalin, on February 25, 1956, there were pro-Stalin demonstrations in Tbilisi, capital of Stalin's native Georgia Soviet Socialist Republic March 4 -10th, ending with possibly dozens to hundreds of protesters killed or wounded by Soviet soldiers.

John Patrick Bedell shot two police officers at the Pentagon Metro station March 4, 2010.  Bedell was the only fatality. 

March 5, 1841 abolitionists called "anarchists" broke two people alleged to be fugitive slaves out of the Lorain County, Ohio jail.

Red Rosa Luxemburg was born March 5, 1871 in Zamość, in southeastern Poland, at the time part of Congress Poland, part of the Russian Empire.  For more information see:  redstarpublishers.org , www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/index.htm [ mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/marxist-leninist-theory/ ] , etc.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin reportedly passed away March 5, 1953, but there are questions and he might have been assassinated.  Subsequently revisionism gained power in the USSR and elsewhere, ultimately destroying the country and restoring capitalist economic relations, though more was involved in the counter-revolution and restoration than just the death of one "great man" of history.

His works can be found at:  marx2mao.com/Stalin/Index.html ,  www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/index.htm , michaelharrison.org.uk/the-great-marxist-leninist-theoreticians/ ,  etc. and can often be found at library book sales in Durham and probably elsewhere (as can other classic Marxist works), sometimes cheaper than the when originally printed by International Publishers, etc.  Inexpensive new books in English and Spanish are available from:  redstarpublishers.org/

March 5th is Learn from Lei Feng Day in China, and is marked by doing volunteer work.  Lei Feng was a young People's Liberation Army soldier killed in a traffic accident August 15, 1962. 

Venezuelan president Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias passed away 10 years ago, March 5, 2013.

The "Cop City"/ South River Forest/Welaunee Forest Atlanta mass arrests for domestic terrorism were the night of March 5, 2023, and included a Southern Poverty Law Center legal observer:  mronline.org/2023/03/13/at-least-23-cop-city-protesters-charged-with-domestic-terrorism-in-atlanta/ etc.  The same charge was used December 13th.

The first woman in space, cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova, was born March 6, 1937, and went into space June 16, 1963. 

[Glenn Greenwald was born March 6, 1967 in Queens, New York.] 

British astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel was born March 7, 1792. 

Michael Lucas was born March 7, 1926 in Slovakia, but his family moved to Canada during his childhood.  He was a leader of the Society of Carpatho-Russian Canadians, the Canadian Friends of the Soviet People (and the USSR-Canada Friendship Association from 1972 to 1991), and former editor of Northstar Compass, a magazine published by the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with the Soviet People until several years ago.  Lucas was also a long-time member of the Communist Party of Canada.  In his working life he was an artist and designer and directed the Southam Newspapers' art department.  He frequently visited the former Czechoslovakia and USSR.  He passed away peacefully early on May 4, 2020 at 94 and was survived by his wife Helen, who served as financial secretary of the CFSP and helped produce Northstar Compass, and two children.    

northstarcompass.org/history.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Lucas_(political_activist)

Fightback! News obituary:  www.fightbacknews.org/2020/5/9/passing-michael-lucas-immigrant-organizer-and-friend-soviet-people

Funeral information:  turnerporter.permavita.com/site/MichaelLukac.html

Related article at:  www.pressreader.com/canada/toronto-star/20190106/281496457419898 or  www.thestar.com/news/gta/2019/01/05/the-golden-girls-of-prospect-cemetery.html

The Civil War naval Battle of Hampton Roads was March 8 - 9, 1862 where the James River flows into Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.  It was the first battle between ironclad warships, the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor.  Neither ship could sink the other and this was their only battle.  The Virginia was built using the hull and engines of the USS Merrimack, still under construction at what is now the Norfolk Naval Shipyard when the War began.  The Monitor had a revolutionary, though flawed, design, leading to a new class of warships (monitors) around the world and, with further developments, to the battleships of the early 20th century, which were then eclipsed by aircraft carriers during WWII.

The week of March 8th is Women Of Aviation Worldwide Week, commemorating the first pilot license given to a woman, Raymonde de Laroche, on March 8, 1910.

International Women's Day is Wednesday, March 8th. 

The Russian February (Bourgeois) Revolution was March 8 - 16, 1917, before the Great October Socialist Revolution that fall.

Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was born March 9, 1890.  Some of his writings are online at:  www.marxists.org/archive/molotov/index.htm and Russian interviews with him were published in English as Molotov Remembers in 1991, but the Russian original has not been translated.  [ There are some documents at:  www.marxists.org/archive/molotov/index.htm , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Molotov , and michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/03/writings-of-the-soviet-leadership/   ] [ mltheory.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/marxist-leninist-theory/ ]

The first human in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, was born March 9, 1934 and went into space April 12, 1961. 

The US firebombing of Tokyo the night of March 9 - 10, 1945 is thought to have killed 100,000 people, injured a million more, and left one million homeless.  It levelled 16 square miles of the densely inhabited Japanese capital city.  There were other bombing raids on Tokyo, but this was the most destructive and resulted in more immediate deaths than any other attack during World War II, including the atomic bombings:  www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0310-08.htm and Wikipedia. 

March 10th is Harriet Tubman Day:  www.harriettubman.com/day.html

March 11th (or September 26th) is Johnny Appleseed Day.

The 2011 Touhoku earthquake and tsunami or Great East Japan Earthquake was March 11th. 

Comet C/1980 E1 (Bowell) was discovered February 11, 1980; it passed by Jupiter December 9th of that year, accelerating Bowell enough for it to exit the Solar System after passing by the Sun March 12, 1982.  Only the two interstellar objects recently observed passing through the Solar System had higher orbital eccentricities.

The Maoist Revolutionary Internationalist Movement was founded March 12, 1984 at a conference in France.

Daylight Saving Time begins Sunday, March 12th in 2023 in the USA.

According to Wikipedia, by convention (set in 1925) the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City, was founded March 13, 1325.  The decision to build on what was then an island in a series of fresh and saltwater lakes in a basin in Mexico's central mountains is supposed to have been based on an oracle about looking for a bird of prey holding a snake while perched on a prickly pear cactus, an event depicted on the Mexican flag and coat of arms.  There are questions about how the Aztec capital began, but maybe more archaeological will eventually be uncovered.    

Astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus March 13, 1781, observing from his garden in Bath, UK.  Uranus had been observed before, possibly including by Hipparchos, Flamsteed, Galileo, and Le Monnier; it is apparently visible to the eye unaided, but was mistaken for a star.  Herschel reported it as a comet.  

The Soviet/Russian newspaper Izvestia was founded March 13, 1917, representing the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' Deputies.

In the decisive Battle of Dien Bien Phu, March 13 to May 7, 1954, the Viet Minh, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, defeated the US-backed French military.  The First Indochina War ended soon after, as did the government of French prime minister Joseph Laniel.  France agreed to withdraw from Indochina, which became divided Vietnam, with an election on re-unification to be held in July 1956; Laos; and Cambodia.  

Many people, including the then governor of Arizona Fife Symington III, saw the Phoenix Lights March 13, 1997 over Nevada, Arizona, and Mexico's Sonora state.  I think it was reported on the front page or at least in the front section of the Durham Herald-Sun.  

Around 3am March 13, 2020 Julius Giron, an elderly leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines; his wife Lourdes Tan Torres; and their aide were killed in Baguio City by military and police forces supposedly carrying out an arrest warrant.  The government of the Philippines said that it wants to negotiate, but killed the "principle peace consultant to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines:"  www.fightbacknews.org/2020/3/19/frso-condemns-murder-communist-party-philippines-leader-julius-giron ; cpp.ph/red-salute-to-ka-nars/

The Civil War Battle of New Bern, in coastal NC, was March 14, 1862; Federal forces captured the city and held it for the rest of the Civil War.  A Confederate offensive February 1-3, 1864 failed to retake the city.

Karl Marx passed away March 14, 1883 in London, UK.

Albert Einstein was born March 14, 1879.  He is famous for his discoveries in physics, but he also wrote the article "Why Socialism?," published in the May 1949 first issue of Monthly Review:  monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism  

March 14th is White Day in Japan, a commercially inspired holiday related to Valentine's Day.  Apparently White Day is also celebrated in other East Asian countries.

The Revolutionary War Battle of Guilford Courthouse was March 15, 1781 in what is now Greensboro, NC.

[Black rain was reported to have fallen from an intensely black cloud early on March 15, 1900 from Louisburg, in Franklin County, NC, through Wake Forest, to Morrisville, just southeast of Durham, in Wake County.

This is referenced in the book Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America by Jerome Clark, quoting the March 23, 1900 edition of the Statesville Landmark, which reprinted an article from the the March 20^th News and Observer in Raleigh (available online at:  www.digitalnc.org/newspapers/ ).

Searching through that edition of the News and Observer – how the headlines don't change – “Our Warships in Chinese Waters,” with “no hostile meaning” (US and Canadian warships just passed through the Taiwan Strait, around the time Defense Secretary Austin was calling for dialogue at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in early June). In 1900 US imperialism could be named and discussed in a major newspaper, with references to William Jennings Bryan and debate at UNC's Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies. Today it is literally stated in the mainstream Anglophone media that only Russian imperialism exists, the others having died out in the 20^th century (this might have been stated by US-UK guest journalists on a Friday edition of NPR's 1A). It's like the “War on Terror” and the Libya War never happened, and the US military weren't occupying part of Syria and stealing the war- and disaster-torn country's resources right now. There is even empty (?) talk in Washington of invading Mexico again. Even without invading, the US government shot and killed at least one Mexican civilian, a minor, in Mexico several years ago. The media can discuss How to Hide an Empire, as long as it refers to long past events, though the US still runs Puerto Rico and has soldiers in the Philippines, etc. Imperialism isn't only the direct military occupation of other countries and financial, economic, and diplomatic methods are currently on display against Russia, Venezuela, China, Syria, Cuba, etc. I don't recall many anti-war letters to the editor appearing in the Democratic Party-leaning N and O in recent decades, though they did receive letters.]

The United Communist Party of Russia was founded March 15, 2014 at a congress held in Moscow:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Communist_Party

UNC's Davie Poplar Jr was planted in McCorkle Place (the northern quad) March 16, 1918, by the Class of 1918.  This tree is a clone of the massive Davie Poplar, growing nearby (these are tulip-poplars/yellow-poplars or tuliptrees, actually in the magnolia family; the Davie Poplar is named for Governor William Richardson Davie) ; there is a legend that the decision to build the University at this site was made under the Davie Poplar and that the University will die with the tree (fortunately, though tuliptrees grow fast, they can live for hundreds of years).  A few clones and descendants of the Davie Poplar have been planted around UNC and there are a number of large tuliptrees, probably blooming in April or early May (possibly earlier than tuliptrees in Durham or in more rural ares) with large yellowish-green and blaze orange flowers attractive to honey bees. 

British artist, illustrator, and art instructor Edith Blackwell Holden died March 15, 1920, having fallen into a part of the Thames River near the Kew Gardens Walk.  She was born September 26, 1871 and is probably most known for her nature journal, The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady, published in 1977 and the subject of a TV documentary.

Buzzards Day is supposed to be March 15th.

The International Day Against Police Brutality is March 15th. 

The Civil War Battle of Averasboro was March 16, 1865 in eastern North Carolina.

Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov (born June 3, 1885) passed away March 16, 1919 and is buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

US soldiers carried out the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam March 16th, 1968.

Chemical weapons were dropped on the city of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan March 16, 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War. 

Canadian Airborne Regiment soldiers tortured and killed Somali Shidane Arone, 16, and posed with his body:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4 

Panda Day is March 16th.

Robert Simeon Arbib Jr, ornithologist and author of the award-winning 1971 book The Lord's Woods:  The Passing of an American Woodland, among others, was born March 17, 1915 in Gloversville, New York, but grew up in Woodmere on Long Island.  He passed away July 20, 1987.

Saint Patrick's Day is Friday, March 17th.  

The Paris Commune was March 18 to May 28, 1871.  Communes were formed or attempts were made in several other French cities.

The Peace of Riga agreement March 18, 1921 established the Soviet-Polish border that held during the interwar period. 

Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov stepped outside of his spacecraft, the first ever extravehicular activity (EVA) in space, March 18, 1965. [The Soviet space program was also the first to transfer people between orbiting spacecraft, carried out the first EVA by a woman, female and male cosmonauts carried out the first metalworking in the vacuum of space, and Soviet cosmonauts hold records for number of EVAs and duration.  The first EVA by someone other than a Soviet or an American was in 1988 by a French astronaut based on the Soviet space station Mir.  The first American EVA was June 3, 1965 and the US holds some records as well.] 

Under Operation Menu the US Strategic Air Command bombed eastern Cambodia March 18, 1969 to May 26, 1970 during the Vietnam War.  This was not the first or last US bombing of Cambodia, and the bombing escalated over time. 

The Communist Party of the Workers of France or PCOF (Parti communiste des ouvriers de France) was founded March 18, 1979, the anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune:  www.pcof.net

The Battle of Bentonville was March 19 - 21, 1865 in Johnston County, NC.  There is usually a reenactment, but nothing has been announced so far:  historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/bentonville-battlefield  There will be events March 18th and "Bentonville in Bloom" will be April 15th (see the link). 

Chinese revolutionary and wife of Mao Tse-tung, Jiang Qing/Chiang Ching, was born March 19, 1914.

The war for Algerian independence from France ended March 19, 1962.  The Battle of Algiers is a well-known film on the national liberation war, banned in France for years. 

NATO attacked Libya March 19, 2011 and leader Qaddafi was killed extrajudicially, possibly with something like a knife, and the Obama administration watched it on video.  Many of those captured with Qaddafi were also summarily executed.  UN Security Council Resolution 1973, allowing the imposition of a "no-fly zone," was approved March 17th with 10 yes votes and five abstentions.  Bosnia and Herzegovina, Colombia, France, Gabon, Lebanon, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, the UK, and the USA voted for the Resolution, while Brazil, China, Germany, India, and Russia abstained.  Germany apparently did not directly join in the unprovoked NATO aggression.  Part of Ukraine has long wanted to join this aggressive organization run for the benefit of the US government, with some of the European imperialist powers.  [ See also:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4 ]

Tulsi Gabbard ended her first presidential campaign March 19, 2020 and endorsed Joe Biden.

[The Dutch East India Company, apparently the world's first joint-stock company, was created March 20, 1602.]

There was an important battle of the Tuscarora War March 20 - 23, 1713 at Fort Neoheroka near Snow Hill in Greene County ( blog.ecu.edu/sites/nooherooka/ ).  

The first US aircraft carrier, the USS Langley, was commissioned March 20, 1922, remodeling the older USS Jupiter, a collier, following the Washington Naval Treaty limiting naval armaments.  There is an article from the National Air and Space Museum here.

The Iraq War began around March 20, 2003, though the US was carrying out economic and "kinetic" war against Iraq throughout the period between 1991 and 2003.  What will the mainstream media say in 2023?  In early March 2022 NPR's Morning Edition even interviewed George W Bush Administration member Condoleezza Rice about the war in Ukraine.  

[Condemning US wars and proxy wars was "above the pay grade" of Durham officials back then, even when Republicans were in the White House, but they made a show of yellow and blue international solidarity with Ukraine in 2022:  twitter.com/CityofDurhamNC/status/1499903958621597703 and 'unfriended' the city of Kostroma, Russia, ending a sister city relationship that began in 1968.  Too bad there wasn't more "anti-American" cultural retaliation over the US invasion of Iraq, like BDS.  Is Google going to let me say that?] [ See also:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4 ]

World Frog Day is supposed to be March 20th, and is separate from Save the Frogs Day, the last Saturday in April [the 15th annual Save the Frogs Day, April 28, 2023:  savethefrogs.com/ ].

The UN's French Language Day is March 20th:  www.un.org/fr/observances/french-language-day/ , in French.  

The Northern Hemisphere's spring equinox will be Monday, March 20th in 2023.  Nowruz will on or around the 20th.

World Sparrow Day is March 20th:  www.worldsparrowday.org  Specifically this day refers to house or English sparrows, which are not native to the US, but are or were common in places like strip malls.  Now house finches, native to the Western US, seem to be replacing house sparrows in my area.  House sparrows are also in decline where they are native, such as in India.  American species of sparrow aren't closely related to house sparrows.   

Mexican president Benito Pablo Juárez Garcia was born March 21, 1806, honored with a national holiday.

Arbor Day is Friday, March 17th in North Carolina (the first Friday after March 15th - www.arborday.org/celebrate/dates.cfm ).  There was usually a Durham Arbor Day celebration.  

March 21st is the UN's International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:  www.un.org/en/events/racialdiscriminationday/ and the Week of Solidarity with the Peoples Struggling Against Racism and Racial Discrimination is March 21 - 27:   www.un.org/en/sections/observances/international-weeks/index.html

March 21 is also the International Day of Forests ( www.fao.org/international-day-of-forests/en/ ), World Poetry Day, International Colour Day, and World Down Syndrome Day, among others.

Braxton Bragg, the namesake of Fort Bragg, was born March 22, 1817 in Warrenton, North Carolina.  He served in the US army during the Second Seminole War and the Mexican-American War.  Apparently Ft. Bragg honors him, for his artillery command in Mexico.  He was a general in the Confederate army but is often blamed for defeats such as the loss of Wilmington, so naming a Ft. Bragg in NC seemed to be meant as an ironic insult.   

The Lao People's Democratic Party, at the time called the Lao People's Party, was founded at a congress March 22-April 14, 1955 in Vientiane, Laos. 

Through the USSR's Interkosmos program, the Soyuz 39 mission, launched March 22, 1981, to the Salyut 6 space station, included Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa, Mongolia's first cosmonaut.

The Hungarian Soviet Republic was declared March 21, 1919, but was overthrown by outside military intervention in August 1919.  It was led by Béla Kun, born February 20, 1886. 

World Water Day is March 22nd:  www.un.org/en/observances/international-days-and-weeks 

International Seal Day is supposed to be March 22nd.

Ukraine's only submarine, the Zaporizhzhia, was captured by Russia March 22, 2014 and half the crew joined the Russian navy.  Russia was apparently going to return the ship to Ukraine but Ukraine did not renew a ceasefire that summer.

Patrick Henry is supposed to have said "Give me liberty, or give me death!" during a speech before the Second Virginia Convention in Richmond, March 23, 1775.

The Lao People's Democratic Party, at the time called the Lao People's Party, was founded at a congress March 22-April 14, 1955 in Vientiane, Laos. 

US forces besieged Fort Macon, on the coast of North Carolina near Beaufort, March 23-April 26, 1862 and took the fort with few losses on either side.  The Fort built of brick and stone, was becoming antiquated by the 1860's with the development of more accurate rifled artillery, unlike earthen Fort Fisher, but much of Fort Fisher has been destroyed or eroded away.  Fort Macon has been used by the US military as recently as WWII, but is now a small state park:   www.ncparks.gov/state-parks/fort-macon-state-park 

March 23rd is the Day of the Sea in Bolivia, commemorating the loss of Bolivia's access to the Pacific Ocean in the late 19th century War of the Pacific, involving Bolivia, Chile, and Peru.  The USA's education system teaches very little about the history of countries bordering the US, let alone in relatively nearby South America, though the US government still believes in the Monroe Doctrine of controlling the Western Hemisphere, with a major anniversary this year.  I had a high school history teacher who at least wanted to cover Latin America, but it didn't work out. 

Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh was hung by the British March 23, 1931.  He was born September 27, 1907 in Banga, or Bangay, Punjab, now in northeastern Pakistan.

Historian and political leader Walter Anthony Rodney was born March 23, 1942 in Georgetown, in what was then British Guiana, and was assassinated June 13, 1980 in independent Guyana:  mronline.org/2022/04/13/the-mecca-of-african-liberation/

Reagan announced his Strategic Defense Initiative (nicknamed Star Wars) in a televised speech March 23, 1983.  A successful Star Wars program would have allowed the USA to use nuclear weapons and avoid Mutually Assured Destruction.  SDI was also criticized as being technologically unfeasible, very costly, and in violation of treaties.

Historic Soviet/Russian space station Mir (meaning peace) was sent into the South Pacific March 23, 2001 due to lack of funding.  Construction had begun February 19, 1986.  People from many countries worked there and there was extensive US-Russian cooperation during the 90's.  Until October 2010 Mir held the record for the longest continuous human presence in space.  Cosmonaut Valeri Vladimirovich Polyakov lived there for 437 days during the mid-90's.

According to Wikipedia, the anti-war organization Not In Our Name (NION) was founded March 23, 2002, and dissolved March 31, 2008.

World Bear Day is supposed to be March 23rd; black bears are occasionally seen in the Triangle but probably no longer live here permanently, though they breed elsewhere in NC.  Bears are rumored to have lived in the bottomlands along the New Hope and Haw rivers, cut and flooded for Jordan Lake.

Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright passed away March 23, 2022 and was born May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia.  She is well-known for defending the deadly sanctions against Iraq during the 90's and other service to US imperialism and neoliberalism with the Clintons, Zbigniew Brezezinski, etc.

Yugoslav WWII Partisan general and anti-revisionist dissident Arsenije "Arso" Jovanović was born March 24, 1907 in Zavala, Montenegro, near the capital.  After the denunciation of Tito a group tried to cross into Romania near Vršac, in Vojvodina, Serbia and Jovanović was killed by Yugoslav border guards the night of August 11, 1948.

Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdamez was assassinated March 24, 1980 in El Salvador.

March 24th is World Tuberculosis Day.  March 24th is also the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, commemorated March 24th because Monsignor Óscar Arnulfo Romero was assassinated in El Salvador on that day in 1980. 

Argentina's Day of Remembrance for Truth and Justice is March 24th, the date of a military coup in 1976, and commemorates the victims of the US-supported Dirty War and Operation Condor.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was discovered March 24, 1993 by astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker (June 24, 1929 -August 13, 2021 , geologist Eugene M Shoemaker (April 2, 1928 - July 18, 1997) and amateur astronomer David H Levy (born May 22, 1948).  The comet broke apart as it passed close to Jupiter - someone might have compared it to a string of pearls - and it crashed into the planet July 16 - 22, 1994.  In July 19, 2009 another impact site was observed and something might have been observed to crash into Jupiter March 17, 2016.  

NATO bombed Yugoslavia from March 24 - June 10, 1999 over the war in Kosova, hitting China's embassy in Yugoslav capital Belgrade, hospitals, health centers, schools, houses, medieval monuments, the Avala Tower, bridges, and transportation infrastructure. This is similar to what Russia is accused of doing in Ukraine, and people have drawn comparisons between the USA/NATO use of force to redraw borders in the Balkans and what Russia is doing in Ukraine, and as in Kosova there is apparently at least some local popular support for secession. [ See also:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4 ]

Christiaan Hyugens, born April 14, 1629 in The Hague, Netherlands, discovered Titan, Saturn's largest moon, March 25, 1655.  Titan has a thick atmosphere, lakes of liquid hydrocarbons, and possibly subsurface oceans, so it could potentially harbor extraterrestrial life or even descendants of earthly microbes through panspermia. 

The quarter day Lady Day / Feast of the Annunciation is March 25th; this was once the beginning of the year in some places.

March 25th is the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire was March 25,1911 in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NYC.

Ida B Wells (Ida Bell Wells-Barnett) passed away March 25, 1931 in Chicago.  [[She was born July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi.]

Birdie Sanders

Remarkably, a songbird, reportedly a female house finch, landed on the podium as Bernie Sanders spoke to a crowd of about 11,500 at an outdoor rally in Portland, Oregon March 25, 2016 (Good Friday):  www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/03/26/watch-small-bird-lands-bernie-sanders-podium/82289730/ ; www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-bird-podium-one-year_n_58d67c55e4b03692bea661ee ; www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/25/bernie-sanders-rally-bird-portland-oregon-portlandia  The Guardian quotes Sanders:  “I think there may be some symbolism here. I know it doesn’t look like it, but that bird is really a dove asking us [for] world peace.” "Birdie Sanders" is probably the origin of Our Revolution's logo (www.ourrevolution.com/ ).  Reportedly Trump and a bald eagle didn't get along.

December 14, 1981 Israel's Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, applying Israeli laws to the Golan Heights, Syrian and disputed Lebanese territory occupied by Israel.  This was seen as annexation and condemned even by the Reagan administration, demonstrating how much more pro-Zionist the US government has become.  The Trump administration recognized this annexation March 25, 2019.  Moving the embassy to Jerusalem May 14, 2018 might have been recognition of Israel's claim to all of the city and a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 478.  The Biden administration hasn't reversed what Trump did, but condemns Russia.  In addition several Palestinians claim that the site of the embassy includes land stolen from them, and the US government knows this and some of these claimants are US citizens.  One March in a recent year the USAF might have first conducted military exercises with Israel over the occupied West Bank, another form of recognition of Israeli annexation of foreign territory by force, within the USA's "norms" and 'rules-based international order.'

Earth Hour will be Saturday March 25th in 2023 and March 30th in 2024, especially 8:30 - 9:30pm, when people are encouraged to turn off unnecessary lights as a symbol of commitment to dealing with climate change and other environmental problems (and it could reduce light pollution for a short time).  National Dark-Sky Week is supposed to be held annually the week of the New Moon in April, and highlights light pollution and stargazing. 

The Civil War Battle of Glorietta Pass was March 26 – 28, 1862 in northern New Mexico Territory, near Sante Fe.  The site is considered endangered today.

Thirty-nine members of the Heaven's Gate cult were found dead March 26, 1997 in Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego, having committed mass suicide so that their souls could board an alien spacecraft they believed to be following Comet Hale-Bopp, a very bright comet at the time.  Comet Hyakutake was bright the March before, though I think my memory wants to say that Hale-Bopp was first and that I saw both, without optical aids.   

The "Saudi Coalition," materially supported by the US, intervened in the Yemeni Civil War March 26, 2015, fighting the Houthi coalition (termed Operation Decisive Storm).  [ See also:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5302.HTM#4 ]

Russian revolutionary Sergei Kirov was born March 27, 1886 in what is now Kirov Oblast.  He was assassinated December 1, 1934. 

Hungarian sociologist Karl Mannheim, author of Ideology and Utopiwas born March 27, 1893 in Budapest.

Two Boeing 747s collided on a runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands March 27, 1977, the deadliest airliner crash.    

The North Carolina Green Party gained official recognition March 27, 2018, meaning people could register as Greens and the Green Party could appear on ballots, making it easier for Greens to run for office ( www.ncgreenparty.org/sb656 ).  It lost recognition again after the 2020 election, and then had to petition again and even go the courts to force the Democrat-run State Board Elections to follow the law in 2022.  See a few summer-fall 2022 posts.

Soviet writer Maxim Gorky (Alexei Maximovich Peshkov) was born March 28, 1868.  Some of his works are online at:    www.marxists.org/archive/gorky-maxim/index.htm and in print from redstarpublishers.org/

The second known asteroid, 2 Pallas, was discovered March 28, 1802 by German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthaus Olbers.

Silo Plowshares 

On March 28, 1986 (Good Friday that year) five peace activists damaged two Minuteman II ballistic missile silos controlled from Whiteman Air Force Base, near Holden, Missouri.  The activists displayed banners including ""Disarmament - An Act of Healing."  Working in two groups, they used sledgehammers to damage the tracks used to open the 120-ton silo covers, used masonry hammers to damage sensors, and cut wires.  They drew crosses in blood on the silo covers and wrote "Disarm and Live" and "For the Children" with spraypaint on the silo pads.  They also indicted the government for violating religious and secular law and indicted churches that abet the arms race.  About 40 minutes later they were arrested by military police.  They were found guilty of destroying government property and conspiracy.  Three were jailed for contempt because they refused to answer questions, such as who had alerted CBS' "60 Minutes" about the action.  The remaining two were again jailed for lack of cooperation in protest of the three jailed for contempt.  Four were sentenced to eight years imprisonment and five years probation and one to seven years imprisonment and the same five years probation.  All were fined $100 dollars, two had to pay $1680 in restitution and two $424.  These summaries come from Swords Into Plowshares:  Nonviolent Direct Action for Disarmament, edited by Arthur J Laffin and Anne Montgomery, and published in 1987. 

Lavrenti Pavlovich Beria was born March 29, 1899 in what is now Abkhazia, a Soviet autonomous republic that seceded from the Republic of Georgia after Georgia seceded from the disintegrating USSR.  Beria and people associated with him were tried and executed December 23, 1953, paving the way for Khrushchev's rise, though it has been alleged that Beria poisoned Stalin and was involved in other crimes.  Some of Beria's works are online at:   www.marxists.org/archive/beria/index.htm , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Beria , michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/03/writings-of-the-soviet-leadership/ , and in print from redstarpublishers.org ; there is some discussion of Beria in articles at ml-review.ca/aml/index/subject.html#b


The Maoist New People's Army, armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (English-language website:  cpp.ph/ ), was established March 29, 1969 and has been waging armed struggle ever since.  The US government classified it as a "terrorist" group in 2002.  I think this Smithsonian Folkways CD has NPA music:  folkways.si.edu/philippines-bangon-arise/historical-song-struggle-protest-world/music/album/Smithsonian

March 29th is the unofficial Day of the Young Combatant / Día del joven combatiente in Chile, commemorating the killing of Rafael and Eduardo Vergara Toledo, brothers who allegedly belonged to MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) during the US and China supported Pinochet dictatorship.

Manatee Appreciation Day is supposed to be the last Wednesday in March, the 29th this year. 

Two Army HH60 Black Hawk helicopters from the 101st Airborne Division crashed during training the night of March 29, 2023 near Fort Campbell, in western Kentucky near Hopkinsville and Clarksville:  www.foxnews.com/us/fort-campbell-helicopter-crash-kentucky-gov-andy-beshear-confirms-multiple-fatalities-expected

The Crimean War ended March 30, 1856 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. 

The Civil War Battle/Skirmish of Stanwix Station was March 30, 1862 at the southwest corner of Arizona, somewhat close to Yuma.  

March 30th is Land Day in Palestine.

The attempted assassination of President Reagan was March 30, 1981.

Russian revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai was born March 31, 1872.  See also:  www.marxists.org/archive/kollonta/index.htm , neodemocracy.blogspot.com/search/label/Kolontai , michaelharrison.org.uk/2022/03/writings-of-the-soviet-leadership/ , and redstarpublishers.org/  [See also the March 8, 2023 posts.]

A US-backed military coup in Brazil beginning March 31, 1964 installed a brutal military government that lasted until 1985, praised by former rightist president Jair Bolsonaro.

According to Wikipedia, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), known as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada for electoral purposes, to separate it from the unrelated Communist Party of Canada, was founded March 31, 1970 [On the 53rd anniversary:  cpcml.ca/Tmlm2023/MS5304.HTM#1 ].  Some music from the CPCML is online at:  www.youtube.com/channel/UCGM05kHPxsmToUjm-sSZefg

March 31st is the International Transgender Day of Visibility, declared in 2009 and officially proclaimed by Biden in 2021, and Cesar Chavez Day (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993), proclaimed nationally in 2014 by Obama, at the end of Farmworker Awareness Week:  saf-unite.org/national-farmworker-awareness-week/

[It was reported that slices of meat fell from a cloud near Cloverlea (Clover Lea? Not Clover leaf), on the south bank of the Pamunkey River, close to Richmond [?], in Hanover County, Virginia, on land belonging to Dr GW Bassett, a medical doctor, on Good Friday, 1850. The brief mention in Weird America: A Guide to Places of Mystery in the United States (page 175) says that the cloud was red. In Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America it is said that several men observed a small cloud going northeast to southwest overhead and fragments of flesh and liver fell over a span of 5 yards. Bassett and another person picked up 15 – 20 samples, some of which weighed an ounce, the next morning. The samples were preserved in alcohol and one was sent to a doctor in Richmond. This Dr Bassett seems to be the George Washington Bassett (August 23, 1800 – August 25, 1878) buried in Old Church, Hanover County – www.findagrave.com/memorial/6446088/george-washington-bassett ]

By Easter Sunday 1987 every known California condor had been captured, for a captive breeding program.  The birds were de-loused, apparently exterminating the California condor louse Colpocephalum californici , discovered in 1963, destroying the information that could have been gained from studying them and possibly causing future problems for the condors, when they get new parasites, the ecological niche now being vacant.  Insights into human evolution have come through the study of our parasites, also going extinct, just through better hygiene or through active extermination campaigns, though some are generalists and could live without feeding on us.  I feel like there is some tension or problematic questions that public health workers and officials ignore.  The BBC often reminds me of it.  Apparently when the first nuclear bomb was detonated there was some acknowledgement of the magnitude of what the Manhattan Project had done or achieved.  [More examples at:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation-induced_extinction ]

The Hainan Incident, George W Bush's first foreign policy crisis, was April 1, 2001, and resulted in the destruction of a Chinese PLA Navy J-8II fighter and the presumed death of pilot Lt Cmdr Wang Wei and the capture of the offending US Navy EP-3 ARIES and its 24 crew members when they landed at a Chinese base. The EP-3 was shipped back to the US in pieces and rebuilt.  EP-3's and military aircraft from other countries apparently came very close January 29 and November 5, 2018 over the Black Sea, July 19, 2019 near Venezuela, etc, in each case the US claiming to be the innocent party, operating over international waters.

The US Capitol Car Attack was April 2, 2021. 

There were many UFO reports in Lumberton, NC April 3-5, 1975, according to the book Weird Carolinas.  

The Weather-connected May 19th Communist Organization bombed an Israeli Aircraft Industries  Building April 5, 1984.

A mystery airship, a period UFO, with a searchlight, reportedly travelled rapidly (but airships aren't noted for their speed today) over Wilmington, North Carolina April 8, 1897, according to the book Weird Carolinas.

There will be a total solar eclipse across much of North America April 8th in 2024, a sequel to the Great American Eclipse of August 21, 2017, and the last easy opportunity to see one for a while.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko will again be close to the Sun April 9, 2028.

The Civil War Battle of Picacho Pass was April 15, 1862 in south-central Arizona near Tucson.  Modern Southern Arizona was claimed as US New Mexico Territory/Confederate Arizona Territory, (apparently the first official appearance of "Arizona").  The very south part, below the Gila and Rio Grande rivers, had been bought from Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase, effective June 8, 1854. 

The Civil War Battle of New Hope Creek, a skirmish or raid in the Leigh Farm Park and Farrington Road area, now divided by I-40, along the Durham-Orange county line, was April 14, 1865.  There has been a lot of residential building along Farrington in that area in recent years.  The Battle of Morrisville, southeast of what is now Durham, was April 13 - 15.  

[The RMS Titanic sank April 15, 1912.]

USPS employee Douglas Hughes flew an ultralight gyrocopter from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to the west lawn of the US Capitol April 15, 2015, in a non-violent protest against Congress' corruption and dysfunction. 

Durham is typically frost-free by mid-April, something like the 16th, and tax day is around then.  There is a saying about planting corn when the unfurling new oak leaves are the size of some animal's ears, but I'm not sure if this works.  I have an old planting schedule from an agriculture department, possibly no longer accurate, because of climate change moving the frost dates and improvement cultivar.

[A mystery airship, or UFO, is supposed to have hit a windmill and crashed in the town of Aurora, in northeast [?] Texas, the morning of April 17, 1897, killing the pilot.  Apparently there is another early account of a UFO crashing to earth, from Max, in southwest Nebraska, June 6, 1884:  www.ufocasebook.com/nebraskaroswell.html ]

US Tax Day is April 18th in 2023:  www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-sets-january-23-as-official-start-to-2023-tax-filing-season-more-help-available-for-taxpayers-this-year

There was a bombing at the Washington Navy Officers Club April 20, 1984.

The UN's Chinese Language Day April 20th:  www.un.org/zh/observances/chinese-language-day , in Chinese.

Conservationist Aldo Leopold passed away April 21, 1948 in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  For more information, see:  www.aldoleopold.org/about/aldo-leopold/    

Lyrid meteor shower is April 15 - 29th, peaking on the night of the 22nd amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/2020-meteor-shower-list/ and amsmeteors.org/meteor-showers/meteor-shower-calendar/

There was a bombing at the National War College April 26, 1983.

The USA's national Arbor Day is April 28th, with different state Arbor Days:  www.arborday.org/celebrate/

Save the Frogs Day is April 28th, the last Saturday in April

The Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, with Tashkent as its capital, was created within the RSFSR April 30, 1918.  The name varied.  It was abolished October 27, 1924 and ultimately divided into the Central Asian republics of the USSR, today independent countries.

A man attempting to enter was shot outside the CIA's Langley, Virginia headquarters May 2, 2021:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_political_violence_in_Washington,_D.C. 

Prolific English author and bureaucrat Hugh Swynnerton Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton passed away May 7, 2017.

Four DuPont employees reported eight UFOs over the Savannah River nuclear weapons plant in Ellenton, SC May 10, 1952, according to the book Weird Carolinas.  

There was a Weather Underground bombing at the National Guard Association of the United States May 10, 1970.

There was a bombing at the Pentagon May 19, 1972, claimed by the Weather Underground. 

The La Paz Incident, May 20, 1863 near the southwest corner of Arizona, somewhat close to Yuma, was one of the westernmost acts of violence during the US Civil War, between a recently released Confederate sympathizer from California and apparently unarmed US soldiers.  

The on going anti-nuclear White House Peace Vigil began June 3, 1981, started by William Thomas Hallenbeck Jr (March 20, 1947 – January 23, 2009).  There was a vigil against the sanctions on Iraq and then the "War on Terror," etc. for years in Durham and Chapel Hill and shorter anti-war vigils at Durham's Brightleaf Square and in Raleigh, but I think they have all ended.  There was also an anti-torture vigil on Highway 70 in Johnston County.

[Apparently there is an early account of a UFO crashing to earth in Max, southwest Nebraska, June 6, 1884:  www.ufocasebook.com/nebraskaroswell.html ]

Brian William Haw (January 7, 1949 – June 18, 2011) began camping on, or maybe "occupying," Parliament Square in London June 2, 2001 as an anti-war protest.

The Congressional Baseball Shooting was June 14, 2017.

Roman emperor Julian, "the Apostate," in Christian tradition, among other epithets, positive and negative, is supposed to have been born in 331 CE in Constantinople, and passed away June 26, 363, after the Battle of Samarra, now in Iraq, against Sassanid Persia, now Iran.  Julian plays a part in the story of saints John and Paul.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin incident, in northwest Germany, is supposed to have taken place around Saint John and Paul's Day, June 26, 1284.

Israeli Air Force attaché Yosef Alon was shot to death early on July 1, 1973 outside his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, possibly by Black September.

[In July 1882 two roaring clouds of locusts are reported to have converged near the Reese River in central Nevada [?]. Dead locusts and drops of water are supposed to have rained down. Locusts, dead for some reason, covered more than 100 acres six inches to 3 feet deep in less than 15 minutes. The masses of dead grasshoppers attracted “thousands of crows and buzzards.” This comes from Jerome Clark's book Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America, drawing from an article, “ A Hopper Cloudburst,” in the July 16, 1882 Daily Nevada State Journal.

The species of grasshopper isn't identified in the account, if this really happened, but maybe they were Rocky Mountain locusts, which once gathered in vast and amazing or terrifying swarms over much of what is now the central USA, but they are now probably extinct. The settlers wanted to get rid of the grasshoppers, but if the species is extinct, it was probably an unintended consequence of settlement/colonization in the Rockies. A wading bird, the Eskimo curlew, might have gone extinct with the locust. The bounty of the land could go to the locusts and other forms of life, as it had for probably millions of years, or to capitalist agriculture. How did the locust interact with native subsistence agriculture and food systems? The UN and international technocrats might want to repeat this history on other continents. Have they looked for alternatives? In the East, Americans couldn't coexist with Carolina parakeets, large animals of many kinds, etc., though we now ask poorer countries to preserve their wildlife and forests.]

[It was reported that, during a thunderstorm the evening of July 7 (?), 1885, “just after the flash of lightning and crash of thunder which made every one believe for an instant that he had been struck,” “a beautiful as well as awe inspiring scene was presented to the gaze of those so fortunate to be upon the street at the time” – “a ball of fire, resembling a meteor” rapidly crossed the sky east to west over Bismarck (?), North Dakota “produc[ing] a whizzing, sizzling sound, and thr[owing] off numerous sparks in its flight.” The sight “fill[ed] the startled spectator with feelings of terror” as the object raced down. ” With terrific force the glaring missile, hurled from some planetary wreck or produced by some freak of electricity, struck the Missouri River about a quarter of a mile below the landing, the gurgle and momentary roar of the aggravated waters being plainly heard on west Main Street.” This comes from an article, “An Electric Ball,” in the the Bismarck Daily Tribune July 8, 1885, reprinted in Jerome Clark's Unnatural Phenomena: A Guide to the Bizarre Wonders of North America]

Two pilots reported a UFO a short distance south of High Point, NC July 11, 1947 at 7:20pm, according to the book Weird Carolinas.  There was an Orange County report in the Daily Tar Heel several years ago, I think in the summer, but I will have to look for it.  Many interesting reports are probably not publicized at the time or mentioned in published works.  A UFO reportedly hovered over a Duke Power substation in Mount Airy, NC for nearly 45 minutes very early in the morning one day in August 1968.  There is another report, from Copeland, NC, October 19, 1973.  [I think of the Carolinas as not very rich in UFO reports compared to other states, but Weird Carolinas claims that there have been nearly 3000 reports, and that there could be ten times more unreported sightings.]

Ken Burns' The Civil War was first aired on PBS September 23 – 27, 1990; it was aired September 7– 11, 2015 for its 25th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the War.