Recently, I discovered more of my paternal distant cousin. One human being, who is my 4th cousin, is Robert James Barber, and he was born in October 1968. We share the same ancestor of my late 3rd great grandfather Isam Tillery (b. 1835 in North Carolina). Robert James Barber's parents are Robert J. Barber and Charlene Denise Ayres-Britt (b. 1951). Charlene Denise Ayres-Britt was born on February 6, 1951, in Northampton County, Virginia (on the Eastern Shore). She married Robert J. Barber in June 1968 in Trenton, New Jersey. Charlene's parents are Elton Douglas Garland Ayres (1930-1983) and Vivian Garfield Beech (b. 1931). My 2nd cousin Vivian Garfield Beech was born on August 5, 1931, in Northampton County, Virginia. She married Elton Douglas Garland Ayres on September 18, 1950, in Northampton County, Virginia. Vivian and Elton Douglas Garland Ayres's children are Charlene Denise Ayres-Britt, Darisel Darcel Ayres (1952-1953), Elton Douglas Ayres Jr. (b. 1953), Bessie Teresa Ayres (b. 1954), Ernestine Ayres Dean (1955-2004), and Carolyn Louise Ayres (b. 1957). Vivian Garfield Beech's parents are Walker Dumas Beech Jr. (1885-1966) and Cora Lee Tillery (1895-1955). My first cousin Cora Lee Tillery was born on June 15, 1895, in North Carolina, and she married Walker Dumas Beech Jr. on September 21, 1911, in Northampton County, Virginia. Cora Lee Tillery and Walker Dumas Beech Jr.'s children are Dumas Beech Jr. (1914-1921), Rose E. Beech (1916-1939), Melvin Thomas Beech (1917-1968), Earl Dale Beech (1919-1991), Lois Carolyn Beech (1923-2020), Darrel Morgan Beech (1926-1991), Carrie Webster Beech (b. 1930), Philbert Dutel Beech (b. 1930), Barbara Ann Beech (1934-1998), and Vivian Garfield Beech (b. 1931). Cora Lee Tillery's parents are Walter Tiller (1868-1927) and Sallie Gary (b. 1869). Cora's parents are my 3rd great-grandparents of Isam Tillery (b. 1835) and Martha Jane Randolf (b. 1847). Louise Edwards is my 2nd cousin whose parents are Leroy Edwards (1911-1978) and Bessie L. Tillery (1917-1978). Bessie L. Tiller's parents are Walter Tillery (1868-1927) and Anna Page (b. 1886). Walter Tillery was my 2nd great granduncle. Walter Tillery's parents were Isam Tillery (b. 1835) and Martha Jane Randolf (b. 1847).
Something in my intuition compelled me to mention information about Brazil. Bolsonaro is the far-right extremist who lost the 2022 Brazilian election. Recently, Bolsonaro supporters tried to storm the police headquarters in a January 6-style rampage. This comes about Lula having her election victory in Brazil. These far-right terrorists torched cars and buses. They wanted to storm the federal police headquarters. Inacio Lula da Silva was inaugurated in January of 2023. Far-right terrorists were arrested for trying to incite violence. These extremists wore the yellow Brazil shirt to support Jair Bolsonaro's extremist views. Brasilia has suffered a lot from these evil people. They have destroyed buildings and signposts. They have used rubbish bins and gas canisters as weapons. These Bolsonaro-supporting cowards will not prevail. Real progressive policies will make Brazil a better place with Lula as the real President of Brazil on January 1, 2023. President of Brazil Lula makes an ambitious deforestation pledge. This comes as Brazil's rainforest is nearing a point of irreversible decline. Some like Luis Guedes Pinto want to use a project to improve Brazil's biodiversity, grow forests, and nurse the Earth's forests back to health. Pinto is the CEO of SOS Mata Atlantica. Pinto wants to rehabilitate swaths of forest lands on the Brazilian Atlantic coast. The forest houses more than 145 million Brazilians. The Amazon rainforest has been damaged by deforestation for years. Three-quarters of the area has been wiped out by urban and infrastructure development plus by aggressive agribusiness practices. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was born on October 27, 1945. He has been President of Brazil since January 1, 2023. He is the first Brazilian President elected to a third term, and the oldest Brazilian President at the time of inauguration at the age of 77 years old. During his previous 2 terms, he helped to reduce poverty, inequality, illiteracy, unemployment, infant mortality, and child labor rates in Brazil. Lula wants to handle the economic crisis, grow democracy, have peace, have a National System of Culture, and expand housing programs.
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was one of the most exciting Olympics of all time. It was the Games of the XXXI Olympiad. This multisport event lasted from August 5th to 21, 2016. During those games, I was almost 33 years old in a few months after the Games (so, I was born in 1983). Rio was announced as the city to host the games at the 121st IOC Session in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 2, 2009. 11,238 athletes from 207 nations took part in the 2016 Games, including first-time entrants Kosovo, South Sudan, and the Refugee Olympic Team. With 306 sets of medals, the Games featured 28 Olympic sports, including rugby sevens and golf, which were added to the Olympic program in 2009. These sporting events took place at 33 venues in the host city and at five separate venues in the Brazilian cities of São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Brasília, and Manaus. The Rio 2016 Olympics was the first Olympics held in a South American nation. The United States topped the medal table, winning the most gold medals (46) and the highest number of medals overall (121); the US team also won its 1,000th Summer Olympic gold medal overall. Great Britain finished second and became the first country to increase its tally of medals in the Olympiad immediately after being the host nation in 2012. China finished third in the medal table. Host nation Brazil won seven gold medals and 19 medals, its best result at any Olympics, finishing in thirteenth place. Bahrain, Fiji, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Tajikistan, and Vietnam all won their first gold medals, as did the group of Independent Olympic Athletes (from Kuwait).
Over 10 venues were developed for the games. The largest venue at the Games in terms of seating capacity was the 74,738-seat Maracanã Stadium, which served as the ceremony's venue and site of the football finals. The second largest stadium was the 60,000-seat Estádio Olímpico João Havelange, which hosted track and field events. The athletes' village was said to be the largest in Olympic history. Fittings included about 80,000 chairs, 70,000 tables, 29,000 mattresses, 60,000 clothes hangers, 6,000 television sets, and 10,000 smartphones. The Barra Olympic Park is a cluster of nine sporting venues in Barra da Tijuca, in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The site was formerly occupied by the Autódromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, also known as the Jacarepaguá Formula One circuit. There are nine venues within the Olympic Park. These venues are: Carioca Arena 1 – basketball (capacity: 16,000), Carioca Arena 2 – wrestling, judo (capacity: 10,000), Carioca Arena 3 – fencing, taekwondo (capacity: 10,000), Future Arena – handball (capacity: 12,000), Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre – diving, synchronized swimming, water polo (capacity: 5,000), Olympic Aquatics Stadium – swimming, water polo play-offs (capacity: 15,000), Olympic Tennis Centre – tennis (capacity: 10,000 Main Court), Rio Olympic Arena – gymnastics (capacity: 12,000), and the Rio Olympic Velodrome – track cycling (capacity: 5,000).
The Olympic flame was lit on April 21, 2016 at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, the traditional start of the Greek phase of the torch relay. The flame was handed over to the Brazilian organizers in a ceremony at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens on April 27. A brief stop-off was made in Switzerland to visit the IOC headquarters and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, as well as the United Nations Office in Geneva. The torch relay began its journey around Brazil on May 3 at the capital Brasília. The flame visited more than 300 Brazilian cities, including all 26 state capitals and the Brazilian Federal District. The relay ended in Rio de Janeiro on August 5 when the flame was used to light the Olympic cauldron during the opening ceremony. The Rio event used sustainability and environmental protection to promote a more green game. There is a controversy over the downtown revitalization plan too.
The opening ceremony took place at Maracana Stadium on August 5, 2016, directed by Fernando Meirelles, Daniela Thomas, and Andrucha Waddington. The ceremony highlighted aspects of Brazilian history and culture, and featured a segment narrated by Fernanda Montenegro and Judi Dench with an appeal to environmental conservation and the prevention of global warming. The crowd in the stadium numbered 60,000 and the event was broadcast to an estimated global audience of three billion.
The ceremony included the inaugural presentation of the Olympic Laurel, an honor bestowed by the IOC on those that have made "significant achievements in education, culture, development and peace through sport"; the trophy was awarded to Kenyan athlete Kipchoge Keino. The Games were officially opened by the acting president of Brazil, Michel Temer. The Olympic cauldron was lit by long-distance runner Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima, the men's marathon bronze medalist at the 2004 Olympics, who had also received the IOC's Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship after being attacked by a spectator and losing his lead in the race. The cauldron was originally expected to be lit by Brazilian footballer Pelé, but he declined to participate due to health problems. Following the opening ceremony, a public cauldron was lit in front of the Candelária Church by Jorge Gomes, a 14-year-old Brazilian athlete who had escaped from poverty to train as a runner. The 2016 Summer Olympic program featured 28 sports encompassing 306 events.
The Iraq War started on March 19, 2003, when I was a sophomore in college. President George W. Bush gave a warning to Iraq to give up weapons of mass destruction or face invasion. On March 19, 2003, the United States started the invasion with a coordinated satellite-guided Tomahawk cruise missile strike on Baghdad. American, British, Australian, Polish, and Danish military operations begin; ground troops move into Iraq. It wasn't just one nation involved in the Iraq War. Many Western nations were involved in the conflict against the government of Iraq. The war was fierce. In the beginning, Western forces easily defeated Iraqi military forces. By April 10, 2003, there was the fall of Baghdad. Coalition forces moved into Baghdad caused the start of the end of the reign of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. There was naivete in the air because some of the neo-conservatives like President George W. Bush falsely believed that the war was over. On May 1, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush declared major combat operations in Iraq over, which was a false statement. On May 15, 2003, U.S. forces launched Operation Planet X, capturing roughly 260 people, and on May 23, L. Paul Bremer issued Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2, dissolving the Iraqi Army and other entities of the former Ba'athist state. Some scholars said that Bremer made a mistake to dissolve the Iraqi War early because that army could be used to organize a more stable Iraqi state. By June 15, 2003, the U.S. military started Operation Desert Scorpion (a series of raids across Iraq intended to find Iraqi resistance and heavy weapons). Violence continued. On June 24, six soldiers from the British Royal Military Police are killed by a mob in Majar al-Kabir in Southern Iraq. By July 2, 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush challenged forces attacking U.S. troops to "bring 'em on!" which was very controversial back then. On July 13, the Iraqi Governing Council is established under the authority of the Coalition Provisional Authority. By July 22, Uday and Qusay Hussein, Saddam Hussein's sons, are killed in Mosul during a raid by Task Force 20.
August 7 was the date when there was a bus bombing of the Jordanian embassy, the first VBIED bombing of the occupation. August 19 was when the Canal Hotel bombing took place: Truck bomb at the United Nations headquarters killed the top UN envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and 21 others. On August 29, influential Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim is killed in a car bombing as he leaves his mosque after Friday prayers. At least 84 others are killed. This increased sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia Iraqis. The first post-Saddam government existed by September 3, 2003. Later by September 23, 2003, a Gallup poll shows the majority of Iraqis expect a better life in 5 years. Around two-thirds of Baghdad residents state the Iraqi dictator's removal was worth the hardships they've been forced to endure. On October 2, 2003, David Kay's Iraq Survey Group report finds little evidence of WMD in Iraq, although the regime did intend to develop more weapons with additional capabilities. Such plans and programs appear to have been dormant, the existence of these though was concealed from UNSCOM during the inspections that began in 2002. Weapons inspectors in Iraq did find a clandestine "network of biological laboratories" and a deadly strain of botulinum. The US-sponsored search for WMD has so far cost $300 million and is projected to cost around $600 million more. UN Security Council issues Resolution 1511 which envisions a multinational force and preserves Washington's quasi-absolute control of Iraq on October 16, 2003. The bombings in Baghdad on October 27, 2003, are called the Ramandan Offensive. By the end of 2003, the war escalates. On November 2, 2003, in the heaviest single loss for the coalition troops up to that time, two US Chinook helicopters are fired on by two surface-to-air missiles and one crashes near Fallujah and on its way to Baghdad airport; 16 soldiers are killed and 20 wounded. By November 12, a suicide truck bomb blows up the Italian headquarters in Nasiriyah, killing 19 Italians (17 of them soldiers) and 14 Iraqis. The Governing Council unveils an accelerated timetable for transferring the country to Iraqi control on November 15, 2003. On November 22, 2003, there was the 2003 Baghdad DHL attempted shootdown incident: An Airbus A-300 freighter belonging to German courier firm DHL is forced to make an emergency landing with a wing fire and all three-hydraulics lost. Using different engine power to land the aircraft, after being struck by a portable shoulder-fired SA-14 missile. On November 27, U.S. President George W. Bush makes a stealthy Thanksgiving Day visit to Baghdad (the White House has announced that he would be at home with his family) in an attempt to boost morale among the troops and ordinary Iraqis. Bush is accompanied by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and he is flown into Baghdad International Airport aboard Air Force One. On November 30, the U.S. military reported that they killed 46 militants and wounded 18 in clashes in the central area of Iraq. By December 13, 2003, Saddam Hussein was captured in Operation Red Dawn; it was announced the next day. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division launches Operation Ivy Blizzard, lasting from dawn until mid-morning. The operation resulted in the arrest of 12 insurgents. This was on December 17, 2003. By December 27, 2003, there were the Karbala bombings.
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