june 14
Wayback Wednesday: International Webloggers Day 2004
International Weblogger’s Day, also known as InWeDay, is celebrated on June 14 every year. This unofficial holiday was created to bring together bloggers from around the world and, to promote blogging as a way to express yourself and engage in dialogue with people from different countries and backgrounds.
A blog (short for “weblog“) is an online diary consisting of discrete, often informal entries called posts. Most blogs are primarily textual but, they may include other types of content such as images, videos, music and audio.
The term “weblog” was coined [by Jorn Barger] in 1997 [December 17] and its short form, “blog“, was first used [by Peter Merholz when he playfully broke the word into “we blog“] in 1999. That same year, Pyra Labs launched Blogger, one of the first blog-publishing platforms that allow users to create and run blogs for free without any programming background.
In 2004, around 500 bloggers from over 40 countries supported the idea of creating a holiday that would unite blogging enthusiasts from around the world. The inaugural International Weblogger’s Day was held on June 14, 2004. On the occasion of the holiday, bloggers write special posts for their online diaries. In some cities, special meetings are organized where bloggers can meet “offline”.
Unfortunately, the popularity of International Weblogger’s Day has decreased considerably over the recent years.
Anyday Guide
Additional:
♦ Peter Merholz (Blog)
♦ Blogs Turn 10 ~ Who’s The Father (CNET News/Declan McCullagh/Anne Broache/March 20, 2007/ Web Archive Version)
♦ It’s The Links, Stupid (The Economist/Special Report/April 22, 2006)
♦ Robot Wisdom Weblog (Jorn Barger/Wayback Machine/August 15, 2000)
♦ Carolyn’s Diary (Early Online Diary/Carolyn Burke/April 1997)
♦ Scripting News (Longest Running Weblog/Dave Winer/September 1997)
♦ Blogger (Created By Three Friends/San Francisco Pyra Labs/August 1999)
♦ Weblog Awards (Bloggies/2001)
♦ WordPress Available Now (First Official Version/Matt Mullenweg/May 27, 2003)
♦ Steve Garfield (Early Video Blog/January 2004)
♦ AOL Snaps Up Weblogs (CNET/Dawn Kawamoto/October 7, 2005)
♦ Full Time Blogger Kottke Throws In The Towel (CNET/Graeme Wearden/February 23, 2006)
Wayback Wednesday: New Mexico 1912
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
One hundred, nine years ago, today, New Mexico was admitted to the Union, becoming the 47th state. In Spanish, it is Nuevo México and in Navajo, it is Yootó Hahoodzo. It’s capital city is Santa Fe, founded in 1610 as the capital of Nuevo México, a province of New Spain. It’s largest city is Albuquerque and it is part of the Four Corners area of the southwest US. It is the fifth largest state and has a thriving film industry. It is home to the Los Alamos Lab, the White Sands Missile Range and the Sandia Lab. It is home to part of the Navajo Nation, Puebloan Peoples and Apache tribes. At one time, prehistorically, it was home to Ancestral Puebloans, Mogollon, Comanche and Ute Peoples. It has the the highest percentage of Hispanic & Latino Americans and the second-highest percentage of Native Americans, as a population, after Alaska. National New Mexico Day is June 14. Salute!
Flashback Friday: Paris, Lithuania & Tarnów 1940
June 14 was a banner day for the countries of France, Lithuania and Poland. Except for reading the words, we, today, have no clue what these people went through. ~Vic
[Source]
Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939 when Nazi Germany, and their allied Soviet Union, according to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty, invaded Poland. […] the war seemed far away until May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army. The French government departed Paris on June 10 and the Germans occupied the city on June 14.
In the spring of 1939, war with Germany already seemed inevitable. On March 10, the city began to distribute gas masks to civilians and on March 19, signs were posted guiding Parisians to the nearest shelters. On August 31, anticipating bombardment, the French government began to evacuate 30,000 children out of the city […]. On September 1, news reached Paris that Germany had invaded Poland, and France, as expected, promptly declared war on Germany. […] in February 1940, ration cards for food were issued [..].
The French defense plan was purely passive, waiting for the Germans to attack. After eight months of relative calm, […] the Germans struck France on May 10, 1940, bypassing the Maginot Line and slipping through the Ardennes. On June 3, the Germans bombed Paris and its suburbs for the first time […]. On June 8, the sound of distant artillery fire could be heard in the capital. On 10 June, the French government fled Paris […]. On June 12, the French government, in Tours, declared Paris to be an open city [and] that there would be no resistance. At 5:30 in the morning of June 14, the first German advance guard entered the city […]. By the end of the afternoon, the Germans had hung a swastika flag at the Arc de Triomphe […].
According to the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty, Lithuania agreed to allow Soviet military bases (marked in black stars) in exchange for a portion of the Vilnius Region (in orange).
[Source]
The Soviet Union issued an ultimatum to Lithuania before midnight of June 14, 1940. The Soviets, using a formal pretext, demanded to allow an unspecified number of Soviet soldiers to enter the Lithuanian territory and to form a new pro-Soviet government […]. The ultimatum and subsequent incorporation of Lithuania into the Soviet Union stemmed from the division of Eastern Europe into the German and Russian spheres of influence in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939. Lithuania, along with Latvia and Estonia, fell into the Russian sphere. Despite the threat to the independence, Lithuanian authorities did little to plan for contingencies and were unprepared for the ultimatum. With Soviet troops already stationed in the country according to the Mutual Assistance Treaty, it was impossible to mount effective military resistance. On June 15, Lithuania unconditionally accepted the ultimatum and lost its independence.
[Source]
The first mass transport of prisoners by Nazi Germany to Auschwitz Concentration Camp was organized in occupied Poland on June 14, 1940, during World War II. The transport departed from the southern Polish city of Tarnów and, consisted of 728 Poles and 20 Polish Jews. They were dubbed ‘political prisoners’ and members of the Polish resistance. Most were Catholics, since the mass deportations of Jews had not yet begun. All were sent to Auschwitz by the German Security Police. They were transported there from a regular prison in Tarnów where they had been incarcerated as enemies of the Nazi regime. Numbers were tattooed on the prisoners’ arms in the order of their arrival […]. These inmates were assigned the numbers 31 through 758, with numbers 1 through 30 having been reserved for a group of German criminals who were brought to Auschwitz from Sachsenhausen on May 20 and became the first Auschwitz kapos.