Bert T. Combs (August 13, 1911 – December 4, 1991) was an American
jurist and politician from Kentucky. After being decorated for
prosecuting Japanese war criminals before military tribunals during
World War II, he returned to his law practice in Prestonsburg. In 1951
he was appointed by Governor Lawrence Wetherby to fill a vacancy on the
Kentucky Court of Appeals, and was elected to a full term later that
year. He was elected the 50th Governor of Kentucky in 1959 on his second
run for the office. Combs secured passage early in his term of a larger-
than-needed three percent sales tax to pay a bonus to the state's
military veterans, and used much of the surplus to improve the state's
educational system and expand the state park and highway systems. He was
appointed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals by President Lyndon B.
Johnson in 1967, serving three years. In 1985 Combs' challenge to the
state's education funding model led to a court ruling that declared
Kentucky's entire public school system unconstitutional. In 1991 Combs
was caught in a flash flood on the road, and died of hypothermia.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_T._Combs>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
554:
As a reward for over 60 years of service to the Byzantine
Empire, Emperor Justinian I granted Liberius extensive estates in Italy.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberius_(praetorian_prefect)>
1624:
Cardinal Richelieu became the chief minister to King Louis
XIII, and transformed France's feudal political structure into one with
a powerful central government.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_Richelieu>
1868:
A major earthquake near Arica, Peru (now in Chile), caused an
estimated 25,000 casualties, and the subsequent tsunami caused
considerable damage as far away as Hawaii and New Zealand.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1868_Arica_earthquake>
1942:
Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers authorized the construction of facilities that would house the
Manhattan Project.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project>
1954:
The complete version of "Qaumi Taranah", the national anthem of
Pakistan, was broadcast for the first time on Radio Pakistan.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qaumi_Taranah>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sinistromanual:
Left-handed.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sinistromanual>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We must try to advance the cause of humanity by developing in
ourselves, as well as in others, a higher type of manhood and womanhood
than the past has known. To aid in the evolution of a new conscience, to
inject living streams of moral force into the dry veins of materialistic
communities is our aim. We seek to come into touch with the ultimate
power in things, the ultimate peace in things, which yet, in any literal
sense, we know well that we cannot know. We seek to become morally
certain — that is, certain for moral purposes — of what is beyond
the reach of demonstration. But our moral optimism must include the
darkest facts that pessimism can point to, include them and transcend
them.
--Felix Adler
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Felix_Adler>