Phạm Ngọc Thảo (1922–1965), a major provincial leader in South
Vietnam and infiltrator of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN),
was a communist agent of the Vietminh and later the Vietnam People's
Army. As the overseer of Ngo Dinh Nhu’s Strategic Hamlet Program in
the early 1960s, he deliberately forced the program forward at
unsustainable speeds, constructing poorly equipped and poorly defended
villages, in order to foster rural resentment against the regime of
President Ngo Dinh Diem, Nhu's elder brother. Thao was posthumously
promoted by the ARVN to the rank of one-star general and awarded the
title of Heroic war dead (Vietnamese: Liệt sĩ). After the Fall of
Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, the communist government awarded
him the same title and paid war pensions to his family, claiming him as
one of their own.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E1%BA%A3o>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1910:
Ottoman forces captured the city of Shkodër to put down the
Albanian Revolt of 1910.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albanian_Revolt_of_1910>
1938:
A combined German–Austrian team became the first team to
climb the north face of the Eiger, one of the six great north faces of
the Alps.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiger>
1959:
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President
Richard Nixon held an impromptu debate at the opening of the American
National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_Debate>
1980:
At the Moscow Olympics, Australia's Quietly Confident Quartet
swimming team won the gold medal in the men's 4 x 100 metre medley
relay, the only time that the United States, who were boycotting these
games, has not won the event at Olympic level.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_1980_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Men%27s_4_x_100_metre_medley_relay>
2009:
The MV Arctic Sea, reportedly carrying timber, was allegedly
boarded by hijackers off the coast of Sweden, but much speculation
remains as to the actual cargo and events.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Arctic_Sea>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sagacity:
The quality of being sage, wise, or able to make good decisions; wisdom.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sagacity>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav'd a wretch like me! I once
was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see.
--John Newton
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Newton>