June
17
World
Day to Combat Desertification
Enhancing
soils anywhere, enhances life everywhere
There
is a close relationship between livelihood,
ecosystem wellbeing and soils that are rich
in biodiversity. Healthy soils produce life,
and yet soil health depends a lot on how
individuals use their land. What we do to
our soils determines the quality and quantity
of the food we eat and how our ecosystems
serve us. Our increasing ecological interdependence
also means enhancing soils anywhere enhances
life everywhere. Where well tended, soil
biodiversity will be a resource for use
by future generations, and for services
that are yet to be discovered.
In
1994, the United Nations General Assembly
declared June 17 the World Day to Combat
Desertification and Drought to promote public
awareness of the issue, and the implementation
of the United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification (UNCCD) in those countries
experiencing serious drought and/or desertification,
particularly in Africa.
Past
Observances
2010 : Enhancing soils anywhere, enhances
life everywhere
2009 - Conserving land and water, securing
our common future
2008 - Combating land degradation for sustainable
agriculture
2007 - Desertification and climate change,
one global challenge
2006 - The beauty of deserts, the challenge
of desertification
2005 - Women and desertification
About
World Day to Combat Desertification
In
1994, the United Nations General Assembly
declared June 17 the "World Day to
Combat Desertification and Drought"
to promote public awareness of the issue,
and the implementation of the United Nations
Convention to Combat Desertification in
Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought
and/or Desertification, Particularly in
Africa.
Ever
since, country Parties to the Convention,
organizations of the United Nations System,
international and non-governmental organizations
and other interested stakeholders have celebrated
this particular day with a series of outreach
activities worldwide.
The
Convention is the only internationally recognized,
legally binding instrument that addresses
the problem of land degradation in dryland.
It enjoys a truly universal membership of
193 Parties.
The
World Day to Combat Desertification and
Drought is a unique occasion to remind everybody
that desertification can be effectively
tackled, that solutions are possible, and
that key tools to this aim lay in strengthened
community participation and co-operation
at all levels.
Country
Parties and civil society organizations
are invited to organize events to celebrate
the World Day to Combat Desertification
as an additional opportunity to increase
awareness raising and participation in the
process.
Events
1462
– Vlad III the Impaler attempts to assassinate
Mehmed II (The Night Attack) forcing him
to retreat from Wallachia.
1497 – Battle of Deptford Bridge – forces
under King Henry VII defeat troops led by
Michael An Gof.
1565 – Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the
13th Ashikaga shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.
1579 – Sir Francis Drake claims a land he
calls Nova Albion (modern California) for
England.
1631 – Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth.
Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I,
will spend the next 17 years building her
mausoleum, the Taj Mahal.
1673 – French explorers Jacques Marquette
and Louis Jolliet reach the Mississippi
River and become the first Europeans to
make a detailed account of its course.
1773 – Cúcuta, Colombia, is founded by Juana
Rangel de Cuéllar.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: Colonists
inflict heavy casualties on British forces
while losing the Battle of Bunker Hill.
1789 – In France, the Third Estate declares
itself the National Assembly.
1839 – In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha
III issues the edict of toleration which
gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship
in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic
Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of
Peace are established as a result.
1861 – Battle of Vienna, Virginia in the
American Civil War.
1863 – Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg
Campaign of the American Civil War.
1876 – Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud
– 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy
Horse beat back General George Crook's forces
at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory.
1877 – Indian Wars: Battle of White Bird
Canyon – the Nez Perce defeat the U.S. Cavalry
at White Bird Canyon in the Idaho Territory.
1885 – The Statue of Liberty arrives in
New York Harbor.
1898 – The United States Navy Hospital Corps
is established.
1901 – The College Board introduces its
first standardized test, the forerunner
to the SAT.
1910 – Aurel Vlaicu pilots a A. Vlaicu nr.
1 on its first flight.
1930 – U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs
the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act into law.
1932 – Bonus Army: around a thousand World
War I veterans amass at the United States
Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill
that would give them certain benefits.
1933 – Union Station Massacre: in Kansas
City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured
fugitive Frank Nash are gunned down by gangsters
attempting to free Nash.
1939 – Last public guillotining in France:
Eugen Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is
guillotined in Versailles outside the Saint-Pierre
prison
1940 – World War II: sinking of the RMS
Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire,
France.
1940 – World War II: the British Army's
11th Hussars assault and take Fort Capuzzo
in Libya, Africa from Italian forces.
1940 – The three Baltic states of Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation
of the Soviet Union.
1944 – Iceland declares independence from
Denmark and becomes a republic.
1948 – A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Airlines
Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania,
killing all 43 people on board.
1953 – East Germany Workers Uprising: in
East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a
division of troops into East Berlin to quell
a rebellion.
1958 – The Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows
Crossing, in the process of being built
to connect Vancouver and North Vancouver
(Canada), collapses into the Burrard Inlet
killing many of the ironworkers and injuring
others.
1958 – The wooden roller coaster at Playland,
which is in the Pacific National Exhibition,
Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada opens.
It is still open today.
1960 – The Nez Perce tribe is awarded $4
million for 7 million acres (28,000 km²)
of land undervalued at 4 cents/acre in the
1863 treaty.
1961 – The New Democratic Party of Canada
is founded by the merger of the Cooperative
Commonwealth Federation and the Canadian
Labour Congress.
1963 – The United States Supreme Court rules
8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp
against allowing the reciting of Bible verses
and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
1963 – A day after South Vietnamese President
Ngo Dinh Diem announced the Joint Communique
to end the Buddhist crisis, a riot involving
around 2,000 people breaks out. One person
is killed.
1971 – President Richard Nixon declares
the U.S. War on Drugs.
1972 – Watergate scandal: five White House
operatives are arrested for burglarizing
the offices of the Democratic National Committee,
in an attempt by some members of the Republican
party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
1981 – Hyatt Regency walkway collapse: In
the Hyatt Regency Hotel the 2nd and 4th
floor walkways collapse crushing 144 people
to death, this was the worst structural
failure in the United States.
1987 – With the death of the last individual
of the species, the Dusky Seaside Sparrow
becomes extinct.
1991 – Apartheid: the South African Parliament
repeals the Population Registration Act
which required racial classification of
all South Africans at birth.
1992 – A "joint understanding"
agreement on arms reduction is signed by
U.S. President George Bush and Russian President
Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified
in START II).
1994 – Following a televised low-speed highway
chase, O.J. Simpson is arrested for the
murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson,
and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Holidays
and observances
Bunker
Hill Day (Suffolk County, Massachusetts)
Christian Feast Day:
Albert Chmielowski
Botolph (England)
Gondulphus of Berry
Hervé
Hypatius of Bithynia (Eastern Orthodox and
Byzantine Catholic Churches)
Rainerius
June 17 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Day of German Unity, celebrated before October
1990. (West Germany)
Father's Day (El Salvador and Guatemala)
National Day, celebrates the independence
of Iceland from Kingdom of Denmark in 1944.
Soviet Occupation Day (Latvia)
World Day to Combat Desertification and
Drought (International)
Zemla Intifada Day (Sahrawi Arab Democratic
Republic)
For details, contact Datacentre
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