Nguyễn Chánh Thi (1923–2007) was an officer in the Army of the
Republic of Vietnam. Thi joined the French Army at 17 and was captured
by the Japanese after they invaded French Indochina during World War II.
In 1960 he led the Vietnamese Airborne Division in an unsuccessful coup
against Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm, citing political interference
in the military. After Diệm's assassination in 1963, he became the
deputy commander of I Corps under Nguyễn Khánh and helped him
overthrow Diệm's opponents in 1964. Thi was in several juntas that
ruled South Vietnam for the next two years. In February 1965, he helped
to defeat a coup attempt and to force Khánh's resignation at the same
time. In June Thi declined an opportunity to serve as prime minister
after being nominated by his fellow officers; he wanted to let a rival
take the job and then step in after they failed, but he never got the
chance. After the Buddhist Uprising of 1966, Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao
Kỳ had him exiled to the United States. Thi's ouster was supported by
the American leadership, who backed Kỳ's pro-U.S. regime.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ch%C3%A1nh_Thi>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1396:
Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated
a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary in the Battle of
Nicopolis near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nicopolis>
1775:
Ethan Allen and a small force of American and Quebec militia
failed in their attempt to capture Montreal from British forces.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Longue-Pointe>
1911:
An explosion of badly degraded propellant charges on board the
French battleship Liberté detonated the forward ammunition magazines
and destroyed the ship.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_battleship_Libert%C3%A9>
1962:
The North Yemen Civil War began when Abdullah as-Sallal
dethroned the newly crowned Imam al-Badr and declared Yemen a republic
under his presidency.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Yemen_Civil_War>
1996:
The last Magdalene asylum, an Irish institution to rehabilitate
so-called "fallen women", was closed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
booklegging:
The illicit publication and distribution of banned books.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/booklegging>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that
man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of
doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless
in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be
one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I
refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he
will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has
an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of
compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty
is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure
by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope
and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the
glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of
man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and
prevail.
--William Faulkner
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Faulkner>