This Day in History -November 13

Nov 13, 2022 News

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The Soviet Union completes development of first proper assault rifle

Kaieteur News – The AK-47 assault rifle is the most commonly used personal weapon in the 20th century.

Until the beginning of the 21st century, despite having 70 years of life, the AK-47 and its versions were weapons, and the standard weapon selected by more than 50 armies. It also serves many other armed and guerrilla forces in more than 100 countries around the world. Low cost, reliability, and very high efficiency in harsh combat conditions, made this gun the world’s most popular personal weapon.

 

With their influences, the AK-47 was called a symbol in the military, a weapon that changed the face of war. Many countries also use AK-47s for police and border guards. It is also the choice of rebels and criminals around the world. The Soviet Union completed the design of this legendary gun on November 13, 1947, before it was put into general use in 1949. (Source: Scienceinfor.net)

General Carlos Delgado Chalbaud, President of Venezuela, is assassinated in Caracas

Carlos Román Delgado Chalbaud Gómez was a Venezuelan career military officer.

He was the President of Venezuela from 1948 to 1950 as Leader of a military junta. In 1945, he was one of the high-ranking Officers who brought to power the Democratic Action Party by a coup d’état. In 1948, as a Minister of Defense, he led another military coup and lingered as the President until his assassination in Caracas. Chalbaud was kidnapped and murdered on 13 November 1950 by a group led by Rafael Simón Urbina and his nephew Domingo Urbina. The kidnapping took place in Caracas between the neighborhood of Country Club and Chapellin, and his murder occurred in the semi-abandoned Las Mercedes neighborhood. (Wikipedia)

US Supreme Court makes Alabama segregated on buses law illegal, ending Montgomery bus boycott

In 1955 the rule on the buses in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, was that ‘coloured’ passengers must sit at the back and leave the front seats to white passengers.

In December a Black woman in her forties named, Rosa Parks, declined to give a white man her seat on the Cleveland Avenue bus. Her action, apparently, was spontaneous: she said her feet were tired. The bus stopped and she was arrested and fined $14. Montgomery’s Black leaders called for a boycott of the city’s buses and the recently appointed Pastor of the Baptist church in Dexter Avenue, Rev Martin Luther King Jr, was picked to head a Committee to run the boycott and secure publicity. Then virtually unknown, the outcome of the task would be a notable victory in the civil rights battle and a worldwide reputation for Martin Luther King.

The battle was waged principally over education and had started earlier with legal challenges to the system in several states. More than 90 per cent of Montgomery’s Black population joined the boycott, which was copied elsewhere in the South. People formed carpools to get to work or walked, and downtown shops complained of losing business. The Supreme Court ruled against bus segregation and the Montgomery bus company, which was losing money, tried to comply, but was overruled by the local Police Chief. The ruling was however upheld by the Supreme Court in November and the following month the city announced its compliance. (Source: History Today)

Tropical cyclone kills thousands in Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)

Between November 12-13, 1970, a cyclone devastated an area of almost 8,000 square kilometers of East Pakistan’s mid-coastal lowlands and its outlying islands in the Bay of Bengal. It was perhaps the worst natural disaster of the area in centuries.

At 240 km/h (150 mph), the tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). As many as 250,000 lives were lost.

Boxing match death leads to significant changes in the sport

Kim Duk-Koo was a South Korean Boxer who died following a World Championship Boxing match against Ray Mancini. His death sparked a number of reforms in the sport aimed to better protect the health of fighters, including reducing the number of rounds in championship bouts from 15 to 12. Mancini and Kim met in an arena outside Caesars Palace on November 13, 1982.

Mancini and Kim went toe to toe for a good portion of the bout. Kim tore open Mancini’s left ear and puffed up his left eye, and Mancini’s left hand swelled to twice its normal size. By latter rounds, Mancini began to dominate, landing many more punches than Kim did.  In the 14th round, Mancini charged forward and hit Kim with a right. Kim reeled back, Mancini missed with a left, and then Mancini hit Kim with another hard right hand. Kim went flying into the ropes, his head hitting the canvas. Kim managed to rise unsteadily to his feet, but the fight had to be stopped. Minutes after the fight was over, Kim collapsed into a coma, and was removed from the Caesars Palace arena on a stretcher and taken to a hospital. He was found to have a subdural hematoma consisting of 100 cc of blood in his skull. Emergency brain surgery was performed at the hospital to try to save him, but that effort proved to be futile, and Kim died four days after the bout, on November 18. The neurosurgeon said it was caused by one punch. Kim had never fought a 15-round bout before, while Mancini was much more experienced at the time.

The World Boxing Council (WBC), which was not the fight’s sanctioning organization, announced during its annual convention of 1982 that many rules concerning fighters’ medical care before fights needed to be changed. One of the most significant was the WBC’s reduction of title fights from fifteen rounds to twelve. The WBA and the IBF followed the WBC in 1987. The number of ring ropes was increased from three to four to prevent fighters from falling through the ropes and out of the ring. In the years after Kim’s death, new medical procedures were introduced to fighters’ pre-fight checkups, such as electro-cardiograms, brain tests, and lung tests. As one boxing leader put it, “A fighter’s check-ups before fights used to consist of blood pressure and heartbeat checks before 1982.(Throwbackthisday)

The volcano Nevado del Ruiz erupts and melts a glacier, causing volcanic mudslide killing thousands

Nevado del Ruiz, the highest active volcano in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, suffers a mild eruption that generates a series of lava flows and surges over the volcano’s broad ice-covered summit. Flowing mixtures of water, ice, pumice and other rock debris poured off the summit and sides of the volcano, forming ‘lahars’ that flooded into the river valleys surrounding Ruiz. The lahars joined normal river channels, and massive flooding and mudslides was exacerbated by heavy rain. Within four hours of the eruption, the lahars traveled over 60 miles, killing more than 23,000 people, injuring over 5,000, and destroying more than 5,000 homes. Hardest hit was the town of Armero, where three quarters of the 28,700 inhabitants died. (This day in history)

Prestige oil spill occurs after storm bursts a tank of the oil tanker MV Prestige

The Prestige oil spill occurred off the coast of Galicia, Spain, caused by the sinking of the 26-year-old structurally deficient oil tanker MV Prestige in November 2002, carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. During a storm, it burst a tank on November 13, and the French, Spanish, and Portuguese governments refused to allow the ship to dock.

The vessel subsequently sank on November 19, 2002, about 210 kilometres (130 mi) from the coast of Galicia. It is estimated that it spilled 60,000 tonnes or a volume of 67,000 m3 (17.8 million US gal) of heavy fuel oil. The spill polluted thousands of kilometers of coastline and more than one thousand beaches on the Spanish, French and Portuguese coast, as well as causing great harm to the local fishing industry. The spill is the largest environmental disaster in the history of both Spain and Portugal. The amount of oil spilled was more than the Exxon Valdez incident and the toxicity considered higher, because of the higher water temperatures. An estimated ten billion euros was needed for environmental and economic correction. (Wikipedia)

 

 

 

 

 

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