Antigua, the larger of the two main islands, is 108 sq mi (280 sq km). The island dependencies of Redonda (an uninhabited rocky islet) and Barbuda (a coral island formerly known as Dulcina) are 0.5 sq mi (1.30 sq km) and 62 sq mi (161 sq km), respectively.

Constitutional monarchy.

The island of Antigua was explored by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and named for the Church of Santa Maria de la Antigua in Seville. Antigua was colonized by Britain in 1632; Barbuda was first colonized in 1678. Antigua and Barbuda joined the West Indies Federation in 1958. With the breakup of the federation, it became one of the West Indies Associated States in 1967, self-governing its internal affairs. Full independence was granted Nov. 1, 1981.

The Bird family has controlled the islands since Vere C. Bird founded the Antigua Labor Party in the mid-1940s. While tourism and financial services have turned the country into one of the more prosperous in the Caribbean, law enforcement officials have charged that Antigua and Barbuda is a major center of money laundering, drug trafficking, and arms smuggling. Several scandals tainted the Bird family, especially the 1995 conviction of Prime Minister Lester Birds brother, Ivor, for cocaine smuggling. In 2000, Antigua and 35 other offshore banking centers agreed to reforms to prevent money laundering.

In March 2004, the Bird political dynasty came to an end when labor activist Baldwin Spencer defeated Lester Bird, who had been prime minister since 1994. In 2005, income tax, which had been eliminated in 1975, was reintroduced to help alleviate Antiguas deficit.

On July 17, 2007, Louise Lake-Tack became the first woman governor-general of Antigua and Barbuda. In June 2014, Gaston Browne led the Antigua Labour Party to victory in the general election. It was a return to power for the Antigua Labour Party after ten years as the opposition. The party won 14 of 17 seats. Brown was sworn in as prime minister on June 13. Governor-General Dame Louise Lake-Tack left office in August 2014. Antigua

Innovative and famed jazz musician, John Coltrane dies, 1967

Race riot, Cairo, Illinois. National Guard mobilized.

July 17, 1888, Miriam E. Benjamin (School teacher) patented a gong and signal chair for motels.

Billie Holiday was a legendary American jazz singer, songwriter and actress. She was born as Eleanora Fagan on April 7, 1915 to Sarah Julia Fagan and Clarence Holiday. Her parents were neither married, nor living together and Clarence left the family when Billie was just a child. Her mother moved to Baltimore after being kicked out of her parents’ home for being pregnant. Billie went to live with her aunt and had a very difficult childhood. At the age of 9, Holiday was brought before the juvenile court for skipping school, and then sent to Catholic reform school where she was baptized. By the age of 11, she had dropped out of school. At the age of 11, she was raped by her neighbor who was discovered in the act by her mother. The neighbor was arrested and Holiday was placed at the House of the Good Shepherd under protective custody. During this time, she started listening to jazz greats such as Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith.

Before the age of 14, Holiday had started working as a prostitute with her mother but the brothel where they worked was raided and both mother and daughter were sent to prison. She was released from prison in October 1929 after which she began her career as a singer. She made appearances at several clubs in Harlem such as Grey Dawn, Pod’s and Jerry’s and the Brooklyn Elks’ Club. Despite her lack of professional training, Billie soon became an active member of the local Harlem jazz scene. She raspy, honest voice became her signature style and attracted several producers including John Hammond, who appreciated her talent and helped her to meet Benny Goodman, with whom she collaborated on several tracks such as “Your Mother’s Son-In-Law” and “Riffin’ the Scotch”.

Holiday got her first record deal at the age of 18. Her first hits came in 1935 with records such as “What a Little Moonlight Can Do” and “Miss Brown to You”. In 1936, she began working with a saxophonist Lester Young with whom she developed a deep friendship. She was nicknamed “Lady Day” by him and she later joined the Count Basie

On July 17, 2014, Eric Garner died in Staten Island, New York City, after a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer put him in what has been described as a chokehold for about 15 to 19 seconds while arresting him. The New York City Medical Examiners Office attributed Garners death to a combination of a chokehold, compression of his chest, and poor health. NYPD policy prohibits the use of chokeholds.

NYPD officers approached Garner on suspicion of selling loosies (single cigarettes) from packs without tax stamps. After Garner told the police that he was tired of being harassed and that he was not selling cigarettes, the officers went to arrest Garner. When officer Daniel Pantaleo tried to take Garners wrist behind his back, Garner pulled his arms away. Pantaleo then put his arm around Garners neck and took him down onto the ground. After Pantaleo removed his arm from Garners neck, he pushed the side of Garners face into the ground while four officers moved to restrain Garner, who repeated I cant breathe eleven times while lying facedown on the sidewalk. After Garner lost consciousness, officers turned him onto his side to ease his breathing. Garner remained lying on the sidewalk for seven minutes while the officers waited for an ambulance to arrive. The officers and EMTs did not perform CPR on Garner at the scene; according to a spokesman for the PBA, this was because they believed that Garner was breathing and that it would be improper to perform CPR on someone who was still breathing. He was pronounced dead at the hospital approximately one hour later.

The medical examiner concluded that Garner was killed by compression of neck (choke hold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police. No damage to Garners windpipe or neck bones was found. The medical examiner ruled Garners death a homicide. According to the medical examiners definition, a homicide is a death caused by the intentional actions of another person or persons, which is not necessarily an

Congress authorized president to accept Blacks for military service. Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, which freed the slaves of all rebels.

Charles Frank Bolden, Jr., NASA’s first permanent black administrator, was born to Charles Frank and Ethel Bolden, both teachers, on August 19th, 1946 in Columbia, South Carolina.  He rose to the rank of Major General in the United States Marine Corps and was a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut before being named to head the U.S. space agency.

Bolden graduated from C.A. Johnson High School in Columbia, S.C. in 1964.  In 1968, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Science from the United States Naval Academy.  He completed a Master’s degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California in 1977.

After completing his undergraduate studies at the United States Naval Academy, Bolden accepted a commission as a second lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps.  After completing his flight training, he became a Naval Aviator in May of 1970.  From 1972 to 1973, Bolden flew more than 100 flights into North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia while assigned at the Royal Thai Air Base Nam Phong, Thailand.

Upon returning to the United States in 1973, Bolden held various Marine Corps assignments at the Marine Corps Air Stations in Los Angeles and El Toro, California.  In 1979, Bolden graduated from the United States Naval Test Pilot School and was then assigned to the Naval Air Test Center’s System’s Engineering and Strike Aircraft Test Directorates.  

In 1980, Bolden was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA and became an astronaut in 1981.  During his time at NASA, Bolden went into space four times between 1986 and 1994, commanding two of the missions.

Bolden returned to the Marine Corps in 1994 as Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the Naval Academy.  Shortly afterward he was promoted to Deputy Commanding General of I Marine Expeditionary Force (MEF).  From February to June of 1998, Bolden was the Commanding General of I MEF in Operation Desert Thunder, Kuwait.  In July of 1998, Bolden was promoted to Major General and assumed the position of Deputy Commander

John Coltrane was an African-American composer and jazz saxophonist. Coltrane, who was also known as “Trane”, is now known to be one of the most significant and influential jazz saxophonists in history.

John William Coltrane was born on September 23, 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. At the age of twelve, Coltrane lost his father, aunt, and grandparents in the space of a few months, and he was therefore raised by his mother. At the age of seventeen, Coltrane’s mother bought him an alto saxophone and two years into the instrument, Coltrane put together a group with a pianist and a guitarist which he called the ‘cocktail lounge trio’.

Coltrane enlisted in the United States Navy on the day of the Hiroshima Atomic Bombings; however, his musical talent would not go unnoticed in the face of a rapidly downsizing navy, and soon Coltrane was playing numerous gigs for the Navy. His first recording session was also held while he was in the navy, in which Coltrane played the alto saxophone to jazz standards and other bebop tunes.

Following his discharge from the navy, Coltrane played with numerous bands such as King Kolax. He also furthered his education in music after studying jazz theory with the eminent Dennis Sandole. Coltrane also experimented with the tenor saxophone during the 1940s, and by 1952, he was playing the new instrument for the Eddie Vinson band. Coltrane then joined the Miles Davis Quintet in 1955; which was when he released multiple influential recordings that highlighted his superb talent with the saxophone.

In 1960, Coltrane left the Miles Davis Quintet to form his own Quintet; the lineup, after experimenting with various players, settled with Steve Kuhn, Pete La Roca, and Billy Higgins. During this time, Coltrane also started playing the soprano saxophone, which was highly unusual for a jazz player, however, his experiment turned out to be highly successful. Coltrane released three albums with his new group titled “Coltrane’s Sound”, “Coltrane Plays the Blues”, and “My Favorite Things”, the latter of

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr) was born on this day.

Frank Snowden, foremost scholar on blacks in ancient history : Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience and Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks, born

John Coltrane , in full John William Coltrane, byname Trane (born September 23, 1926, Hamlet, North Carolina, U.S.—died July 17, 1967, Huntington, New York), American jazz saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, an iconic figure of 20th-century jazz.

Coltrane’s first musical influence was his father, a tailor and part-time musician. John studied clarinet and alto saxophone as a youth and then moved to Philadelphia in 1943 and continued his studies at the Ornstein School of Music and the Granoff Studios. He was drafted into the navy in 1945 and played alto sax with a navy band until 1946; he switched to tenor saxophone in 1947. During the late 1940s and early ’50s, he played in nightclubs and on recordings with such musicians as Eddie (“Cleanhead”) Vinson, Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges. Coltrane’s first recorded solo can be heard on Gillespie’s “We Love to Boogie” (1951).

Coltrane came to prominence when he joined Miles Davis’s quintet in 1955. His abuse of drugs and alcohol during this period led to unreliability, and Davis fired him in early 1957. He embarked on a six-month stint with Thelonious Monk and began to make recordings under his own name; each undertaking demonstrated a newfound level of technical discipline, as well as increased harmonic and rhythmic sophistication.

During this period Coltrane developed what came to be known as his “sheets of sound” approach to improvisation, as described by poet LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka): “The notes that Trane was playing in the solo became more than just one note following another. The notes came so fast, and with so many overtones and undertones, that they had the effect of a piano player striking chords rapidly but somehow articulating separately each note in the chord, and its vibrating subtones.” Or, as Coltrane himself said, “I start in the middle of a sentence and move both directions at once.” The cascade of notes during his powerful solos showed his infatuation with chord progressions, culminating in the virtuoso performance of

The issues of emancipation and military service were intertwined from the onset of the Civil War. News from Fort Sumter set off a rush by free black men to enlist in U.S. military units. They wereturned away, however, because a Federal law dating from 1792 barred Negroes from bearing arms for the U.S. army (although they had served in the American Revolution and in the War of 1812). In Bostondisappointed would-be volunteers met and passed a resolution requesting that the Government modify its laws to permit their enlistment.

The Lincoln administration wrestled with the idea of authorizing the recruitment of black troops, concerned that such a move would prompt the border states to secede. When Gen. John C. Frémont (photo citation: 111-B-3756) in Missouri and Gen. David Hunter (photo citation: 111-B-3580) in South Carolina issued proclamations that emancipated slaves in their military regions and permitted them to enlist, their superiors sternly revoked their orders. By mid-1862, however, the escalating number of former slaves (contrabands), the declining number of white volunteers, and the increasingly pressing personnel needs of the Union Army pushed the Government into reconsidering the ban.

As a result, on July 17, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act, freeing slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. Two days later, slavery was abolished in the territories of the United States, and on July 22 President Lincoln (photo citation: 111-B-2323) presented the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his Cabinet. After the Union Army turned back Lees first invasion of the North at Antietam, MD, and the Emancipation Proclamation was subsequently announced, black recruitment was pursued in earnest. Volunteers from South Carolina, Tennessee, and Massachusetts filled the first authorized black regiments. Recruitment was slow until black leaders such as Frederick Douglass (photo citation: 200-FL-22) encouraged black men to become soldiers to

Unions troops, with First Kansas volunteers playing leading role, routed rebels at Honey Springs, Indian Territory. Black troops captured colors of a Texas regiment.

Diahann Carroll, actress, born

Fulton County (Atlanta) grand jury indicted Wayne B. Williams, a twenty-three-year-old photographer, for the murder of two of the twenty-eight Black youths killed in a series of slayings and disappearances in Atlanta. William denied the charges but was convicted in February, 1982.

1944 : An ammunitions depot at Port Chicago, California explodes, killing 320 men including 202 African Americans assigned by the Navy to handle explosives. The resulting refusal of 258 African Americans to return to the dangerous work formed the basis of the trial and conviction of 50 of the men in what will be come known as the Port Chicago Mutiny.

Death of singer Billie Holiday (44) New York City.

In March 2004, the Bird political dynasty came to an end when labor activist Baldwin Spencer defeated Lester Bird, who had been prime minister since 1994. In 2005, income tax, which had been eliminated in 1975, was reintroduced to help alleviate Antiguas deficit.

On July 17, 2007, Louise Lake-Tack became the first woman governor-general of Antigua and Barbuda. In June 2014, Gaston Browne led the Antigua Labour Party to victory in the general election. It was a return to power for the Antigua Labour Party after ten years as the opposition. The party won 14 of 17 seats. Brown was sworn in as prime minister on June 13. Governor-General Dame Louise Lake-Tack left office in August 2014. Antigua Labour Party member Rodney Williams replaced her.

See also Encyclopedia: Antigua and Barbuda .

U.S. State Dept. Country Notes: Antigua and Barbuda

Diahann Carroll is a notable African-American television and stage actress and singer. Her successful career spanned for over six decades. She appeared in all black cast films such as Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959). Moreover, she also starred in the first Broadway play, Julia, to feature black woman in a non-stereotypical role. In 1974, she was nominated for the prestigious Academy Award for Best Actress for her astounding performance in Claudine.

Carol Diahann Johnson was born on July 17, 1935 to John Johnson and Mabel, in the Bronx, New York. During her infancy, the family moved to Harlem. She was sent to Music & Art High School for dance and music, which her parents openly supported. At the age of 15, she did a modeling stint for Ebony magazine. Upon her graduation, she went on to New York University to major in sociology. She finally got a big career break when she was landed a spot on Dumont Television Network program, Chance of a Lifetime as a contestant. Carroll won thousand dollars top prize for her rendition of Jerome Kern’s single “Why Was I Born?”. Afterwards, she began to perform at nightclubs and cafes, including Manhattan’s Café Society and Latin Quarter clubs.

In 1954, she made her debut in Carmen Jones, playing a supporting character to the lead. The same year she appeared in a Broadway play, House of Flowers. The film adaptation of George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess starred Carroll but her voice was dubbed by an opera singer. In 1961, she was casted alongside with Sidney Poitier, Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman in film Paris Blues. The following year she was awarded the Tony Award for playing the character of Barbara Woodruff in the Samuel A. Taylor’s musical, No Strings. This made her the first black woman to win the Tony Award. Besides, she worked on television as well and was recognized for her popular central role in Julia. Once again, she became the first African American actress to play the lead that did not involve being a domestic help.

Diahann Carroll’s work on television

Birthday of singer and actress Diahnn Carroll in the Bronx, NY.

In Jan. 2001, Kabila was assassinated, allegedly by one of his bodyguards. His young and inexperienced son Joseph became the new president. He demonstrated a willingness to engage in talks to end the civil war. In April 2002, the government agreed to a power-sharing arrangement with Ugandan-supported rebels and signed a peace accord with Rwanda and Uganda. More than 2.5 million people are estimated to have died in the Congos complex four-year civil war, which involved seven foreign armies and numerous rebel groups that often fought among themselves.

On July 17, 2003, the Congos new power-sharing government was inaugurated, but the fighting and killing continued. In April 2003, hundreds of civilians were massacred in the eastern province of Ituri in an ethnic conflict. In 2004, an insurgency in Bukavu erupted, other areas of the Congo grew restive, and Rwanda continued to support various rebel groups fighting the government. By the end of 2004, the death toll from the conflict had reached 3.8 million.

Richard Allen organized Philadelphias Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.