August 2nd in stamps signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, Constantine I, Calvin Coolidge

Here are some events that happened on August 2nd. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day

1776 – The signing of the United States Declaration of Independence took place.

The United States Declaration of Independence is the pronouncement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1776. The Declaration explained why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. The declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

The Lee Resolution for independence was passed on July 2 with no opposing votes. The Committee of Five had drafted the Declaration to be ready when Congress voted on independence. John Adams, a leader in pushing for independence, had persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document,  which Congress edited to produce the final version. The Declaration was a formal explanation of why Congress had voted to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail, "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America"  – although Independence Day is actually celebrated on July 4, the date that the wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved.

After ratifying the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It was initially published as the printed Dunlap broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The source copy used for this printing has been lost and may have been a copy in Thomas Jefferson's hand. Jefferson's original draft is preserved at the Library of Congress, complete with changes made by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, as well as Jefferson's notes of changes made by Congress. The best-known version of the Declaration is a signed copy that is displayed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and which is popularly regarded as the official document. This engrossed copy (finalized, calligraphic copy) was ordered by Congress on July 19 and signed primarily on August 2.

US stamp depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence

1868 Born: Constantine I of Greece (d. 1923)

Constantine I (2 August 1868 – 11 January 1923) was King of Greece from 1913 to 1917 and from 1920 to 1922. He was commander-in-chief of the Hellenic Army during the unsuccessful Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and led the Greek forces during the successful Balkan Wars of 1912–1913, in which Greece expanded to include Thessaloniki, doubling in area and population. He succeeded to the throne of Greece on 18 March 1913, following his father's assassination.

His disagreement with Eleftherios Venizelos over whether Greece should enter World War I led to the National Schism. Constantine forced Venizelos to resign twice, but in 1917 he left Greece, after threats by the Entente forces to bombard Athens; his second son, Alexander, became king. After Alexander's death, Venizelos' defeat in the 1920 legislative elections, and a plebiscite in favor of his return, Constantine was reinstated. He abdicated the throne for the second and last time in 1922, when Greece lost the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, and was succeeded by his eldest son, George II. Constantine died in exile four months later, in Sicily. 

Greek stamps depicting Constantine  I

1923 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes U.S. President upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

Calvin Coolidge  (July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor of Massachusetts. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected vice president of the United States, and he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small government conservative and also as a man who said very little and had a rather dry sense of humor.

Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the scandals of his predecessor's administration, and left office with considerable popularity.  As a Coolidge biographer wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength".

Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of those presidents that they have assessed. He is praised by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics, while supporters of an active central government generally view him less favorably, though most praise his stalwart support of racial equality.

US stamps depicting Coolidge

August 1st in stamps Colorado, 1936 Olympics, Richard Kuhn, Bazil Assan, Walter Ulbricht

Here are some events that happened on August 1st. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day

1860 Born: Bazil Assan, Romanian engineer and explorer (d. 1918)

Bazil George Assan (1 August 1860 – 16 June 1918) was a Romanian engineer, explorer and economist. Belonging to a wealthy family in Bucharest, Assan was an important figure in the industrialization of the Kingdom of Romania. He studied engineering, commerce and economics, which impulsed him to discover the globe. In 1896, he became the first Romanian to travel to the Arctic, and between 1897 and 1898, he became the first Romanian to travel around the world. His travels were later presented to King Carol I of Romania. Assan died on 16 June 1918 in Montreux, Switzerland.

Assan, stimulated by his knowledge of economics, commerce and industry, was greatly interested in discovering the world. Therefore, in the summer of 1896, he embarked on the Norwegian ship Erling Jart and, along with other scientists of various nationalities, traveled to the Arctic. Assan and the scientists studied the geological structure and natural resources of the archipelago of Svalbard. Thus, he became the first Romanian to travel to the Arctic.

Afterwards, between 1897 and 1898, departing from Constanța, he passed through Constantinople, Alexandria, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Yokohama, San Francisco, New York and London, establishing several trade agreements and becoming the first Romanian to travel around the world. His expeditions were published in the Royal Society of Geography of Romania, of which he was a member. After returning, he presented his conference Călătorie în regiunile polare nordice ("Journey in the northern Polar regions") to King Carol I and Prince Ferdinand I, and days later to the Queen Elisabeth of Wied. In 1899, he presented to the public Călătoria împrejurul Pământului ("Journey around the Earth"), his second conference. Between December 1897 and the middle of 1898, Assan made another trip, this time with more economic and cultural intentions.

Romania stamp depicting Bazil Assan

1876 – Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state.

Colorado is a state of the Western United States encompassing most of the southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. It is the 8th most extensive and 21st most populous U.S. state. The estimated population of Colorado is 5,758,736 as of 2019, an increase of 14.5% since the 2010 United States Census.

The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28, 1861, and on August 1, 1876, U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant signed Proclamation 230 admitting Colorado to the Union as the 38th state. Colorado is nicknamed the "Centennial State" because it became a state one century after the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence.

US stamps issued to commemorate the statehood of Colorado

1936 – The Olympics opened in Berlin with a ceremony presided over by Adolf Hitler.

The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: Olympische Sommerspiele 1936), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: Spiele der XI. Olympiade), was an international multi-sport event held in 1936 in Berlin, Germany. Berlin won the bid to host the Games over Barcelona, Spain, on 26 April 1931, at the 29th IOC Session in Barcelona. It marked the second and most recent time the International Olympic Committee gathered to vote in a city that was bidding to host those Games.

To outdo the Los Angeles games of 1932, Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler had a new 100,000-seat track and field stadium built, as well as six gymnasiums and many other smaller arenas. The games were the first to be televised, and radio broadcasts reached 41 countries. Filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was commissioned by the German Olympic Committee to film the Games for $7 million. Her film, titled Olympia, pioneered many of the techniques now common in the filming of sports.

Hitler saw the Games as an opportunity to promote his government and ideals of racial supremacy and antisemitism, and the official Nazi party paper, the Völkischer Beobachter, wrote in the strongest terms that Jews should not be allowed to participate in the Games. German Jewish athletes were barred or prevented from taking part by a variety of methods, although some women swimmers from the Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna, did take part. Jewish athletes from other countries seem to have been side-lined in order not to offend the Nazi regime. 

Total ticket revenues were 7.5 million Reichsmark, generating a profit of over one million ℛℳ. The official budget did not include outlays by the city of Berlin (which issued an itemized report detailing its costs of 16.5 million ℛℳ) or outlays of the German national government (which did not make its costs public, but is estimated to have spent US$30 million). 

Jesse Owens won four gold medals in the sprint and long jump events and became the most successful athlete to compete in Berlin while Germany was the most successful country overall with 89 medals total, with the United States coming in second with 56 medals. These were the final Olympics under the presidency of Henri de Baillet-Latour and the final Olympic Games for 12 years due to the disruption of the Second World War. The next Olympic Games were held in 1948 (the Winter in Switzerland and then the Summer in London).

German stamps issued for the Berlin Olympics

1967 Died: Richard Kuhn, Austrian-German biochemist and academic, Nobel Prize Laureate (b. 1900)

Richard Johann Kuhn (3 December 1900 – 1 August 1967) was an Austrian-German biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins"

Kuhn's areas of study included: investigations of theoretical problems of organic chemistry (stereochemistry of aliphatic and aromatic compounds; syntheses of polyenes and cumulenes; constitution and colour; the acidity of hydrocarbons), as well as extensive fields in biochemistry (carotenoids; flavins; vitamins and enzymes). Specifically, he carried out important work on vitamin B2 and the antidermatitis vitamin B6.

In 1929 he became Principal of the Institute for Chemistry at the newly founded Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Medical Research (which, since 1950, has been renamed the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg). By 1937 he also took over the administration of this Institute.

In addition to these duties he also served as of Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Heidelberg, and for one year he was at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, as a Visiting Research Professor for Physiological Chemistry.

He was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 for his "work on carotenoids and vitamins," but rejected the prize as Hitler had forbidden German citizens to accept it. In a hand-written letter, he even described the awarding of the prize to a German as an invitation to violate a decree of the Führer. He received the award after World War II. Kuhn is also credited with the discovery of the deadly nerve agent Soman in 1944. 

Kuhn collaborated with high-ranking Nazi officials and denounced three of his Jewish co-workers in 1936. 

In 2005, the Society of German Chemists (Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, GDCh) declared their intention to no longer award the Richard Kuhn Medal: “The board of the GDCh intends to discontinue awarding the Medal named after the organic chemist, Nobel Prize laureate of the year 1938 and President of the GDCh in 1964–65, Richard Kuhn. The board thereby draws the consequences out of research on Richard Kuhn’s behaviour during National Socialism. Even though the question of whether Kuhn was a convinced National Socialist or just a career-oriented camp follower is not fully answered, he undisputably supported the Nazi-regime in administrative and organizational ways, especially by his scientific work. Despite his scientific achievements, Kuhn is not suitable to serve as a role model, and eponym for an important award, mainly due to his unreflected research on poison gas, but also due to his conduct towards Jewish colleagues”

Kuhn was editor of Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie from 1948.

Kuhn died in 1967 in Heidelberg, Germany, aged 66.

Austrian stamp depicting Richard Kuhn

1973 Died: Walter Ulbricht, German soldier and politician (b. 1893)

Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (June 1893 – 1 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later (after spending the years of Nazi rule in exile in France and the Soviet Union) in the early development and establishment of the German Democratic Republic in East Germany. As the First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971, he was the chief decision-maker in East Germany. From President Wilhelm Pieck's death in 1960 on, he was also the East German head of state until his own death in 1973. As the firm leader of the strongest and most important Communist satellite, Ulbricht had a degree of bargaining power with the Kremlin that he used effectively. For example he demanded the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 when the Kremlin was reluctant.

Ulbricht began his political life during the German Empire, when he joined first the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1912, the anti-World War I Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) in 1917 and deserted the Imperial German Army in 1918. He joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1920 and became a leading party functionary, serving in its Central Committee from 1923 onward. After the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, Ulbricht lived in Paris and Prague from 1933 to 1937 and in the Soviet Union from 1937 to 1945.

After the end of World War II, Ulbricht re-organized the German Communist Party in the Soviet occupation zone along Stalinist lines. He played a key role in the forcible merger of the KPD and SPD into the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1946. He became the First Secretary of the SED and effective leader of the recently established East Germany in 1950. The Soviet Army occupation force violently suppressed the uprising of 1953 in East Germany on 17 June 1953, while Ulbricht hid in the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst. East Germany joined the Soviet-controlled Warsaw Pact upon its founding in 1955. Ulbricht presided over the total suppression of civil and political rights in the East German state, which functioned as a communist-ruled dictatorship from its founding in 1949 onward.

The nationalization of East German industry under Ulbricht failed to raise the standard of living to a level comparable to that of West Germany. The result was massive emigration, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the country to the west every year in the 1950s. When Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave permission for a wall to stop the outflow in Berlin, Ulbricht had the Berlin Wall built in 1961, which triggered a diplomatic crisis and succeeded in curtailing emigration. The failures of Ulbricht's New Economic System and Economic System of Socialism from 1963 to 1970 led to his forcible retirement for "health reasons" and replacement as First Secretary in 1971 by Erich Honecker with Soviet approval. Ulbricht suffered a stroke and died in 1973.

East German stamps depicting Walter Ulbricht

June 15th in stamps Edvard Grieg, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Here are some events that happened on June 15th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day 

1843 Born: Edvard Grieg, Norwegian pianist and composer (d. 1907)

Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907) was a Norwegian composer and pianist. He is widely considered one of the leading Romantic era composers, and his music is part of the standard classical repertoire worldwide. His use and development of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to international consciousness, as well as helping to develop a national identity, much as Jean Sibelius did in Finland and Bedřich Smetana did in Bohemia.

Grieg is the most celebrated person from the city of Bergen, with numerous statues depicting his image, and many cultural entities named after him: the city's largest concert building (Grieg Hall), its most advanced music school (Grieg Academy) and its professional choir (Edvard Grieg Kor). The Edvard Grieg Museum at Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen, is dedicated to his legacy.

Stamps from Russia, Monaco and Norway depicting Edvard Grieg

1888 – Crown Prince Wilhelm becomes Kaiser Wilhelm II; he will be the last Emperor of the German Empire. Due to the death of his predecessors Wilhelm I and Frederick III, 1888 is the Year of the Three Emperors.

Wilhelm II or William II (German: Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (Kaiser) and King of Prussia. He reigned from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918 shortly before Germany's defeat in World War I.

The eldest grandchild of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm's first cousins included King George V of the United Kingdom and many princesses who, along with Wilhelm's sister Sophia, became European consorts. For most of his life before becoming emperor, he was second in line to succeed his grandfather Wilhelm I on the German and Prussian thrones after his father, Crown Prince Frederick. His grandfather and father both died in 1888, the Year of Three Emperors, making Wilhelm emperor and king. He dismissed the country's longtime chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in 1890.

Upon consolidating power as emperor, Wilhelm launched Germany on a bellicose "New Course" to cement its status as a respected world power. However, he frequently undermined this aim by making tactless, alarming public statements without consulting his ministers. He also did much to alienate his country from the other Great Powers by initiating a massive build-up of the German Navy, challenging French control over Morocco, and backing the Austrian annexation of Bosnia in 1908. His turbulent reign ultimately culminated in his guarantee of military support to Austria-Hungary during the crisis of July 1914, resulting in the outbreak of World War I. A lax wartime leader, he left virtually all decision-making regarding military strategy and organisation of the war effort in the hands of the German General Staff. This broad delegation of authority gave rise to a de facto military dictatorship whose belligerent foreign policy led to the United States' entry into the war on April 6, 1917. After losing the support of the German military and his subjects in November 1918, Wilhelm abdicated and fled to exile in the Netherlands, where he died in 1941.

Stamp issued by Germany depicting Wilhelm II

 

Postcard depicting Wilhelm II

1934 – The United States Great Smoky Mountains National Park is founded.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is an American national park in the southeastern United States, with parts in Tennessee and North Carolina. The park straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The park contains some of the highest mountains in eastern North America, including Clingmans Dome, Mount Guyot, and Mount Le Conte. The border between the two states runs northeast to southwest through the center of the park. The Appalachian Trail passes through the center of the park on its route from Maine to Georgia. With 12.5 million visitors in 2019, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the United States. 

The park encompasses 522,419 acres (816.28 sq mi; 211,415.47 ha; 2,114.15 km2), making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. The main park entrances are located along U.S. Highway 441 (Newfound Gap Road) in the town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee and Cherokee, North Carolina, and in Townsend, Tennessee. The park is internationally recognized for its mountains, waterfalls, biodiversity, and spruce-fir forests. In addition, the park also preserves multiple historical structures that were part of communities occupied by early settlers of the area. 

The park was chartered by the United States Congress in 1934 and officially dedicated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940. The Great Smoky Mountains was the first national park whose land and other costs were paid for in part with federal funds; previous parks were funded wholly with state money or private funds. The park was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and a International Biosphere Reserve in 1988. 

As the most visited national park in the United States, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park anchors a large tourism industry based in Sevier County, Tennessee adjacent to the park. Major attractions include Dollywood, the second most visited tourist attraction in Tennessee, Ober Gatlinburg, and Ripley's Aquarium of the Smokies. Tourism to the park contributes an estimated $2.5 billion annually into the local economy.

US stamps depicting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

June 14th in stamps Karl Landsteiner, Max Weber, Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Salvatore Quasimodo

Here are some events that happened on June 14th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day

1868 Born: Karl Landsteiner, Austrian biologist and physician, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1943)

Karl Landsteiner (14 June 1868 – 26 June 1943) was an Austrian biologist, physician, and immunologist. He distinguished the main blood groups in 1900, having developed the modern system of classification of blood groups from his identification of the presence of agglutinins in the blood, and identified, with Alexander S. Wiener, the Rhesus factor, in 1937, thus enabling physicians to transfuse blood without endangering the patient's life. With Constantin Levaditi and Erwin Popper, he discovered the polio virus in 1909. He received the Aronson Prize in 1926. In 1930, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was posthumously awarded the Lasker Award in 1946, and has been described as the father of transfusion medicine

In 1900 Karl Landsteiner found out that the blood of two people under contact agglutinates, and in 1901 he found that this effect was due to contact of blood with blood serum. As a result, he succeeded in identifying the three blood groups A, B and O, which he labelled C, of human blood. Landsteiner also found out that blood transfusion between persons with the same blood group did not lead to the destruction of blood cells, whereas this occurred between persons of different blood groups. Based on his findings, the first successful blood transfusion was performed by Reuben Ottenberg at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York in 1907.

Today it is well known that persons with blood group AB can accept donations of the other blood groups, and that persons with blood group O-negative can donate to all other groups. Individuals with blood group AB are referred to as universal recipients and those with blood group O-negative are known as universal donors. These donor-recipient relationships arise due to the fact that type O-negative blood possesses neither antigens of blood group A nor of blood group B. Therefore, the immune systems of persons with blood group A, B or AB do not refuse the donation. Further, because persons with blood group AB do not form antibodies against either the antigens of blood group A or B, they can accept blood from persons with these blood groups, besides from persons with blood group O-negative.

In today's blood transfusions only concentrates of red blood cells without serum are transmitted, which is of great importance in surgical practice. In 1930 Landsteiner was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition of these achievements. For his pioneering work, he is recognized as the father of transfusion medicine.

1920 Died: Max Weber, German sociologist and economist (b. 1864)

Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920) was a German sociologist, philosopher, jurist, and political economist, who is regarded today as one of the most important theorists on the development of modern Western society. As his ideas would profoundly influence social theory and social research, Weber is often cited as among the four founders of sociology, alongside W. E. B. Du Bois, Émile Durkheim, and Karl Marx.

Unlike Durkheim, Weber did not believe in monocausal explanations, proposing instead that for any outcome there can be multiple causes. As such, he would be a key proponent of methodological anti-positivism, arguing for the study of social action through interpretive (rather than purely empiricist) methods, based on understanding the purpose and meanings that individuals attach to their own actions. Weber's main intellectual concern was in understanding the processes of rationalisation, secularisation, and "disenchantment", which he took to be the result of a new way of thinking about the world, associating such processes with the rise of capitalism and modernity. 

Weber is best known for his thesis of combining economic sociology and the sociology of religion, emphasising the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism (contrasting Marx's historical materialism). Weber would first elaborate his theory in his seminal work, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), in which he attributes ascetic Protestantism as one of the major "elective affinities" involved in the rise of market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state in the Western world. Arguing the boosting of capitalism as a basic tenet of Protestantism, Weber would suggest that the spirit of capitalism is inherent to Protestant religious values. Protestant Ethic would form the earliest part in Weber's broader investigations into world religion, as he would go on to examine the religions of China and India, as well as ancient Judaism, with particular regard to their differing economic consequences and conditions of social stratification.

Through another major work, "Politics as a Vocation", Weber would define "the state" as an entity that successfully claims a "monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." He would also be the first to categorise social authority into distinct forms: charismatic, traditional, and rational-legal. Among these categories, Weber's analysis of bureaucracy would emphasize that modern state institutions are increasingly based on the latter (rational-legal authority).

Weber also made a variety of other contributions in economic history, theory, and methodology. His analysis of modernity and rationalisation would significantly influence the critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School. After the First World War, he was among the founders of the liberal German Democratic Party. He also ran unsuccessfully for a seat in parliament and served as advisor to the committee that drafted the ill-fated democratic Weimar Constitution of 1919. After contracting Spanish flu, he died of pneumonia in 1920, aged 56.

1928 Born: Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Argentinian-Cuban physician, author, guerrilla leader and politician (d. 1967)

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14 June 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.

As a young medical student, Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty, hunger, and disease he witnessed. His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemala's social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz, whose eventual CIA-assisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevara's political ideology. Later in Mexico City, Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro, joined their 26th of July Movement, and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing U.S.-backed Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents, was promoted to second in command and played a pivotal role in the victorious two-year guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime. 

Following the Cuban Revolution, Guevara performed a number of key roles in the new government. These included reviewing the appeals and firing squads for those convicted as war criminals during the revolutionary tribunals, instituting agrarian land reform as minister of industries, helping spearhead a successful nationwide literacy campaign, serving as both national bank president and instructional director for Cuba's armed forces, and traversing the globe as a diplomat on behalf of Cuban socialism. Such positions also allowed him to play a central role in training the militia forces who repelled the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and bringing Soviet nuclear-armed ballistic missiles to Cuba, which preceded the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, Guevara was a prolific writer and diarist, composing a seminal manual on guerrilla warfare, along with a best-selling memoir about his youthful continental motorcycle journey. His experiences and studying of Marxism–Leninism led him to posit that the Third World's underdevelopment and dependence was an intrinsic result of imperialism, neocolonialism and monopoly capitalism, with the only remedy being proletarian internationalism and world revolution.  Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to foment revolution abroad, first unsuccessfully in Congo-Kinshasa and later in Bolivia, where he was captured by CIA-assisted Bolivian forces and summarily executed. 

Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. As a result of his perceived martyrdom, poetic invocations for class struggle, and desire to create the consciousness of a "new man" driven by moral rather than material incentives, Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist movements. His critics note that he killed political opponents. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him, titled Guerrillero Heroico (shown), was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as "the most famous photograph in the world".

1968 Died: Salvatore Quasimodo, Italian novelist and poet, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1901)

Salvatore Quasimodo (August 20, 1901 – June 14, 1968) was an Italian poet and translator.

In 1959 he won the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which with classical fire expresses the tragic experience of life in our own times". Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century.

Traditional literary critique divides Quasimodo's work into two major periods: the hermetic period until World War II and the post-hermetic era until his death. Although these periods are distinct, they are to be seen as a single poetical quest. This quest or exploration for a unique language took him through various stages and various modalities of expression.

As an intelligent and clever poet, Quasimodo used a hermetical, "closed" language to sketch recurring motifs like Sicily, religion and death. Subsequently, the translation of authors from Roman and Greek Antiquity enabled him to extend his linguistic toolkit. The disgust and sense of absurdity of World War II also had its impact on the poet's language. This bitterness, however, faded in his late writings, and was replaced by the mature voice of an old poet reflecting upon his world.

Italian stamps depicting Salvatore Quasimodo

June 13th in stamps Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer, Heinrich Hoffmann, Ludwig II, king of Bavaria

Here are some events that happened on June 13th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1665 Died: Egbert Bartholomeusz Kortenaer, Dutch admiral (b. 1604)

Egbert Bartholomeuszoon Kortenaer or Egbert Meussen Cortenaer (1604 – 13 June 1665) was an admiral of the United Provinces of the Netherlands who was killed in the Battle of Lowestoft.

Kortenaer was born in 1604 in Groningen of humble origins. In 1626, he was made boatswain, in 1636, second mate. In the First Anglo-Dutch War, he served as first mate in 1652 on the Dutch flagship, Brederode. In the Battle of Dungeness, he lost his right hand and eye. On 10 April 1653, he was made commandeur to replace flag captain Abel Roelants when Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp used Brederode as his flagship. In the Battle of Scheveningen, Tromp was killed. Kortenaer kept Tromp's standard raised to keep up morale (this was habitual for the Dutch on such occasions) and took command of his squadron. On 21 October 1653, Kortenaer was promoted to captain. In the years after the war, he often commanded squadrons as commodore when flag officers were absent.

In the Battle of the Sound (8 November 1658), serving as flag captain on Eendragt, he beat off every Swedish attack while his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Admiral Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam, was debilitated by gout. After this heroic conduct against the Swedish, Kortenaer was promoted to vice-admiral on 8 May 1659 and knighted by Frederick III of Denmark in the Order of the Elephant. On 29 January 1665, shortly before the Second Anglo-Dutch War, he was made lieutenant-admiral of the Admiralty of de Maze. He wasn't given command of the confederate Dutch fleet because he was a supporter of the House of Orange. A British intelligence report stated, "He is the best man they have".

During the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1665, Kortenaer commanded the van and was second in overall command behind Van Wassenaer. He was fatally wounded early in the battle on Groot Hollandia by a cannonball hitting his hip and buried in Rotterdam in a marble grave memorial engraved with a poem by Gerard Brandt:

The Hero of the Maas, bereft of eye
and his right hand
Yet of the Wheel the Eye, Fist of
the Fatherland
KORTENAER the Great, the terror
of foe's fleets
the forcer of the Sound by this grave
his country greets


Stamps from Sint Maarten depicting Egbert Bartholomeuszoon Kortenaer

1809 Born: Heinrich Hoffmann, German psychiatrist and author (d. 1894)

Heinrich Hoffmann (June 13, 1809 – September 20, 1894) was a German psychiatrist, who also wrote some short works including Der Struwwelpeter, an illustrated book portraying children misbehaving.

Hoffmann published poems and a satirical comedy before, in 1845, a publisher friend persuaded him to have a collection of illustrated children's verses printed which Hoffmann had done as Christmas present for his son. The book, later called Struwwelpeter after one of its anti-heroes, became popular with the public and had to be reprinted regularly; many foreign translations followed. "Struwwelpeter" was not perceived as cruel or overly moral by Hoffmann's contemporaries. The original title, "Funny stories and droll pictures", indicates that entertainment was at least partly the author's intention.

After the book's success, Hoffmann felt persuaded to write other children's books, of which only the first, König Nussknacker und der arme Reinhold, became popular.

He also kept on writing satires and (often comic) poems for adults. His satires show his strong skepticism towards all kinds of ideology and his distaste for religious, philosophical, or political bigotry. Even in Germany, he is today largely remembered for his Struwwelpeter.

Hoffmann was a man of liberal sympathies, campaigned for the goal of a constitutional monarchy, participated in the Vorparlament, and joined the Freemasons but later left due to their refusal to admit Jews.

German stamps depicting characters created by Heinrich Hoffmann

1886 Died: Ludwig II, king of Bavaria (b. 1845)

Ludwig II (German: Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; English: Louis Otto Frederick William; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886) was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He is sometimes called the Swan King or der Märchenkönig ("the Fairy Tale King"). He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, and Duke in Swabia.

Ludwig succeeded to the throne in 1864, aged 18. Two years later, Bavaria and Austria fought a war against Prussia lasting only a matter of weeks, which they lost. However, in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Bavaria sided with Prussia against France, and after the Prussian victory, it became part of the new German Empire led by Prussia. Though Bavaria retained a degree of autonomy on some matters within the new German Reich, Ludwig increasingly withdrew from day-to-day affairs of state in favour of extravagant artistic and architectural projects. He commissioned the construction of two lavish palaces and Neuschwanstein Castle, and he was a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner. Ludwig spent all his royal revenues (although not state funds as is commonly thought) on these projects, borrowed extensively, and defied all attempts by his ministers to restrain him. This extravagance was used against him to declare him insane, an accusation that has since come under scrutiny. Today, his architectural and artistic legacy includes many of Bavaria's most important tourist attractions.

German stamp depicting King Ludwig II of Bavaria

June 12th in stamps Helsinki, Roebling Brooklyn Bridge, Karl von Drais dandy horse, Frédéric Passy

Here are some events that happened on June 12th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1550 – The city of Helsinki, Finland (belonging to Sweden at the time) is founded by King Gustav I of Sweden.

Helsinki is the capital and most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of Uusimaa in southern Finland, and has a population of 650,058. The city's urban area has a population of 1,268,296, making it by far the most populous urban area in Finland as well as the country's most important center for politics, education, finance, culture, and research. Helsinki is located 80 kilometres (50 mi) north of Tallinn, Estonia, 400 km (250 mi) east of Stockholm, Sweden, and 300 km (190 mi) west of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It has close historical ties with these three cities.

Together with the cities of Espoo, Vantaa, and Kauniainen, and surrounding commuter towns, Helsinki forms the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, which has a population of nearly 1.5 million. Often considered to be Finland's only metropolis, it is the world's northernmost metro area with over one million people as well as the northernmost capital of an EU member state. After Stockholm and Oslo, Helsinki is the third largest municipality in the Nordic countries. Finnish and Swedish are both official languages. The city is served by the international Helsinki Airport, located in the neighboring city of Vantaa, with frequent service to many destinations in Europe and Asia.

Helsinki was the World Design Capital for 2012, the venue for the 1952 Summer Olympics, and the host of the 52nd Eurovision Song Contest in 2007.

Helsinki has one of the world's highest urban standards of living. In 2011, the British magazine Monocle ranked Helsinki the world's most liveable city in its liveable cities index. In the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2016 liveability survey, Helsinki was ranked ninth among 140 cities.

Stamps issued in 1950 for the 400  year anniversary of the founding of Helsinki

1806 Born: John A. Roebling, German-American engineer, designed the Brooklyn Bridge (d. 1869)

John Augustus Roebling (born Johann August Röbling; June 12, 1806 – July 22, 1869) was a German-born American civil engineer. He designed and built wire rope suspension bridges, in particular the Brooklyn Bridge, which has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City, spanning the East River between the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn. Opened on May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge was the first fixed crossing across the East River. It was also the longest suspension bridge in the world at the time, with a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and a deck height of 127 ft (38.7 m) above mean high water. The span was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge or the East River Bridge but was officially renamed the Brooklyn Bridge in 1915.

Proposals for a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn were first made in the early 19th century, which eventually led to the construction of the current span, designed by John A. Roebling. His son Washington Roebling oversaw the construction and contributed further design work, assisted by the latter's wife, Emily Warren Roebling. While construction started in 1870, numerous controversies and the novelty of the designed construction process caused the actual construction to be prolonged over thirteen years. Since opening, the Brooklyn Bridge has undergone several reconfigurations, having carried horse-drawn vehicles and elevated railway lines until 1950. To alleviate increasing traffic flows, additional bridges and tunnels were built across the East River. Following gradual deterioration, the Brooklyn Bridge has been renovated several times, including in the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s.

The Brooklyn Bridge is the southernmost of four toll-free vehicular bridges connecting Manhattan Island and Long Island, with the Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridges to the north. Only passenger vehicles and pedestrian and bicycle traffic are permitted. A major tourist attraction since its opening, the Brooklyn Bridge has become an icon of New York City. Over the years, the bridge has been used as the location of various stunts and performances, as well as several crimes and attacks. The Brooklyn Bridge has been designated a National Historic Landmark, a New York City landmark, and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

Stamps and First Day Cover issued in 2006 by Germany to commemorate John Augustus Roebling

US First Day Cover issued for the 100th year anniversary of the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge

1817 – The earliest form of bicycle, the dandy horse, is driven by Karl von Drais.

Karl Freiherr von Drais (full name: Karl Friedrich Christian Ludwig Freiherr Drais von Sauerbronn) (29 April 1785 in Karlsruhe – 10 December 1851 in Karlsruhe) was a noble German forest official and significant inventor in the Biedermeier period.

Drais was a prolific inventor, who invented the Laufmaschine ("running machine"), also later called the velocipede, draisine (English) or draisienne (French), also nicknamed the hobby horse or dandy horse. This was his most popular and widely recognized invention. It incorporated the two-wheeler principle that is basic to the bicycle and motorcycle and was the beginning of mechanized personal transport. This was the earliest form of a bicycle, without pedals. His first reported ride from Mannheim to the "Schwetzinger Relaishaus" (a coaching inn, located in "Rheinau", today a district of Mannheim) took place on 12 June 1817 using Baden's best road. Karl rode his bike; it was a distance of about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi). The round trip took him a little more than an hour, but may be seen as the big bang for horseless transport. However, after marketing the velocipede, it became apparent that roads were so rutted by carriages that it was hard to balance on the machine for long, so velocipede riders took to the pavements and moved far too quickly, endangering pedestrians. Consequently, authorities in Germany, Great Britain, the United States, and even Calcutta banned its use, which ended its vogue for decades.

German stamp issued in 2017 for the 200th anniversary of the bicycle

1912 Died: Frédéric Passy, French economist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1822)

Frédéric Passy (20 May 1822 – 12 June 1912) was a French economist and pacifist who was a founding member of several peace societies and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He was also an author and politician, sitting in the Chamber of Deputies from 1881 until 1889. He was a joint winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1901 for his work in the European peace movement.

Born in Paris to a prominent Catholic and Orléanist family, Passy was surrounded by military veterans and politicians. After training in law, he worked as an accountant and served in the National Guard. He soon left this position and began travelling around France giving lectures on economics. Following years of violent conflicts across Europe, Passy joined the peace movement in the 1850s, working with several notable activists and writers to develop journals, articles, and educational curricula.

While sitting in the Chamber of Deputies, Passy developed the Inter-parliamentary Conference (later the Inter-Parliamentary Union) with British MP William Randal Cremer. Alongside this, he founded several peace societies: the Ligue Internationale et Permanente de la Paix, the Société Française des Amis de la Paix, and the Société Française pour l'Arbitrage entre Nations. Passy's work in the peace movement continued into his later years, and in 1901, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Red Cross founder, Henry Dunant.

Passy died in 1912 after a long period of illness and incapacitation. Despite his economic works gaining little traction, his efforts in the peace movement resulted in him being recognised as the "dean of European peace activists".:34 His son, Paul Passy, published a memoir of his life in 1927, and his works are still being republished and translated into English in the 21st Century.

Stamps from Norway depicting Frederic Passy and Henri Dunant

June 11th in stamps Richard Strauss, Stjepan Radić, Jacques Cousteau, John Wayne

Here are some events that happened on June 11th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day

1864 Born: Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)

Richard Georg Strauss (11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; his tone poems, including Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Ein Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica, and An Alpine Symphony; and other instrumental works such as Metamorphosen and his Oboe Concerto. Strauss was also a prominent conductor in Western Europe and the Americas, enjoying quasi-celebrity status as his compositions became standards of orchestral and operatic repertoire.

Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

Stamps from Berlin and Vatican City depicting Richard Strauss 

1871 Born: Stjepan Radić, Croatian lawyer and politician (d. 1928)

Stjepan Radić (11 June 1871 – 8 August 1928) was a Croatian politician and founder of the Croatian People's Peasant Party (HPSS).

He is credited with galvanizing Croatian peasantry into a viable political force. Throughout his entire career, Radić was opposed to the union and later Serb hegemony in Yugoslavia and became an important political figure in that country. He was shot in parliament by the Serbian radical politician Puniša Račić. Radić died several weeks later from a serious stomach wound at the age of 57. This assassination further alienated the Croats and the Serbs and initiated the breakdown of the parliamentary system, culminating in the 6 January Dictatorship of 1931.

Croatian stamps issued to commemorate Radić

1910 Born: Jacques Cousteau, French biologist, author, and inventor, co-developed the aqua-lung (d. 1997)

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (11 June 1910 – 25 June 1997) was a French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water. He co-developed the Aqua-Lung, pioneered marine conservation and was a member of the Académie française.

Cousteau described his underwater world research in a series of books, perhaps the most successful being his first book, The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure, published in 1953. Cousteau also directed films, most notably the documentary adaptation of the book, The Silent World, which won a Palme d'or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival. He remained the only person to win a Palme d'Or for a documentary film, until Michael Moore won the award in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11.

French stamp and First Day Cover issued to commemorate Jacques Cousteau

1979 Died: John Wayne, American actor, director, and producer (b. 1909)

Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed Duke, was an American actor and filmmaker who became a popular icon through his starring roles in Western films. His career spanned from the silent era of the 1920s, through the Golden Age of Hollywood and eventually American New Wave, appearing in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box office draws for three decades, and appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era.

Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, but grew up in Southern California. He lost a football scholarship to the University of Southern California as a result of a bodysurfing accident, and began working for the Fox Film Corporation. He appeared mostly in small parts, but his first leading role came in Raoul Walsh's Western The Big Trail (1930), an early widescreen film epic which was a box-office failure. He played leading roles in numerous B movies during the 1930s, most of them also Westerns, without becoming a major name. It was John Ford's Stagecoach (1939) that made Wayne a mainstream star, and he starred in 142 motion pictures altogether. According to one biographer, "John Wayne personified for millions the nation's frontier heritage."

Wayne's other roles in Westerns include a cattleman driving his herd on the Chisholm Trail in Red River (1948), a Civil War veteran whose niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in The Searchers (1956), a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer (James Stewart) for a woman's hand in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), and a cantankerous one-eyed marshal in True Grit (1969), for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor. He is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man (1952), Rio Bravo (1959) with Dean Martin, and The Longest Day (1962). In his final screen performance, he starred as an aging gunfighter battling cancer in The Shootist (1976). He made his last public appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979 before succumbing to stomach cancer later that year. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor of the United States.

US stamps depicting John Wayne

June 10th in stamps Jardin des Plantes, Nicolaus Otto, Antoni Gaudí

Here are some events that happened on June 10th. It could be an event or a person that died or was born on that day


1793 – The Jardin des Plantes museum opens in Paris. A year later, it becomes the first public zoo.

The Jardin des plantes (French for "Garden of the Plants"), also known as the Jardin des plantes de Paris when distinguished from other jardins des plantes in other cities, is the main botanical garden in France. The term Jardin des plantes is the official name in the present day, but it is in fact an elliptical form of Jardin royal des plantes médicinales ("Royal Garden of the Medicinal Plants"), which is related to the original purpose of the garden back in the 17th century.

Headquarters of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (National Museum of Natural History), the Jardin des plantes is situated in the 5th arrondissement, Paris, on the left bank of the river Seine, and covers 28 hectares (280,000 m²). Since 24 March 1993, the entire garden and its contained buildings, archives, libraries, greenhouses, ménagerie (a zoo), works of art, and specimens' collection are classified as a national historical landmark in France (labelled monument historique).

French stamps depicting Jardin des plantes

1832 Born: Nicolaus Otto, German engineer (d. 1891)

Nicolaus August Otto (14 June 1832, Holzhausen an der Haide, Nassau – 26 January 1891, Cologne) was a German engineer who successfully developed the compressed charge internal combustion engine which ran on petroleum gas and led to the modern internal combustion engine. The Association of German Engineers (VDI) created DIN standard 1940 which says "Otto Engine: internal combustion engine in which the ignition of the compressed fuel-air mixture is initiated by a timed spark", which has been applied to all engines of this type since.

German block of 4 depicting Nicolaus Otto

1926 Died: Antoni Gaudí, Spanish architect, designed the Park Güell (b. 1852)

Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (25 June 1852 – 10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism. Gaudí's works have a highly individualized, one-of-a-kind style. Most are located in Barcelona, including his main work, the church of the Sagrada Família.

Gaudí's work was influenced by his passions in life: architecture, nature, and religion. He considered every detail of his creations and integrated into his architecture such crafts as ceramics, stained glass, wrought ironwork forging and carpentry. He also introduced new techniques in the treatment of materials, such as trencadís which used waste ceramic pieces.

Under the influence of neo-Gothic art and Oriental techniques, Gaudí became part of the Modernista movement which was reaching its peak in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work transcended mainstream Modernisme, culminating in an organic style inspired by natural forms. Gaudí rarely drew detailed plans of his works, instead preferring to create them as three-dimensional scale models and moulding the details as he conceived them.

Gaudí's work enjoys global popularity and continuing admiration and study by architects. His masterpiece, the still-incomplete Sagrada Família, is the most-visited monument in Spain. Between 1984 and 2005, seven of his works were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Gaudí's Roman Catholic faith intensified during his life and religious images appear in many of his works. This earned him the nickname "God's Architect" and led to calls for his beatification.

Spanish stamps depicting Gaudi's works