QUOTE OF THE DAY

BIRTHS

Frank Healey (1828-17.02.1906), a British composer.
James Mason (1849-12.01.1905), an American player born in Ireland. In early 1880s was one of the strongest players in the world.
Abraham Speijer (1873-05.09.1976), a Dutch Master who won the first Dutch championship.
Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-08.03.1942), One of the greatest players of the chess history born in Cuba, the third World Champion (1921-1927).
Isaac Kashdan (1905-20.02.1985), an American Grandmaster, International Arbiter and columnist. The best American player of the 1930s. He was twice U.S. Open champion (1938, 1947).
Peter Biyiasas (1950), Canadian Grandmaster born in Greece who was CCanadianChampion in 1972 and 1975.
Nenad Ristic (1958), a Serbian Grandmaster.
Mihail Saltaev (1962), an Uzbek Grandmaster (1962).
Varuzhan Akobian (1983), an American Grandmaster born in Armenia.Vice US Champion in 2014.
Yu Wang, (1982), a Chinese International Master and Woman Grandmaster who won the Asian Women’s Chess Championship of 2004 and the Chinese Women’s Chess Championship in 2005.
Anatoly Bykhovsky, (1988), an Israeli Grandmaster.

DEATHS

Josef Vancura (18.08.1898-1921), a Czech composer.
Oscar Naegeli (25.02.1885-1959), a Swiss dermatologist and chess Master who won twice Swiss Chess Championship (1910 and 1936).

CHESS EVENTS

1966 To celebrate the end of the 1966 Olympiad, the local authorities of Havana invited 380 masters to play a simultaneous display against 6480 chess lovers. At that time it was a world record.
1993  In Monaco, World Women Champion Xie Jun (CHN) successfully defended her title by beating N. Ioseliani (GEO) 8½-2½.

WORLD EVENTS

1942 World War II: Battle of Stalingrad: Soviet Union forces under General Georgy Zhukov launch the Operation Uranus counterattacks at Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the USSR’s favor.
1944 World War II: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces the 6th War Loan Drive, aimed at selling US$14 billion in war bonds to help pay for the war effort.
1946 Afghanistan, Iceland and Sweden join the United Nations.
1950 US General Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes Supreme Commander of NATO-Europe.
1954 Télé Monte Carlo, Europe’s oldest private television channel, is launched by Prince Rainier III.
1969 Association football player Pelé scores his 1,000th goal.
1977 TAP Portugal Flight 425 crashes in the Madeira Islands, killing 131.
1979 Iran hostage crisis: Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini orders the release of 13 female and black American hostages being held at the US Embassy in Tehran.
1985 Cold War: In Geneva, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev meet for the first time.
1998 Lewinsky scandal: The United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee begins impeachment hearings against U.S. President Bill Clinton.
1998 Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of the Artist Without Beard sells at auction for US$71.5 million.

(Source: Wikipedia)

GAME OF THE DAY