The Double Seven Day scuffle was a physical altercation on July 7, 1963, in Saigon, South Vietnam. The secret police of Ngô Đình Nhu—the brother of President Ngô Đình Diệm—attacked a group of American journalists who were covering Buddhist protests. Peter Arnett of the Associated Press was punched on the nose, but the quarrel quickly ended after David Halberstam of The New York Times, being much taller than Nhu's men, counterattacked and caused the secret police to retreat. Arnett and his colleague, Malcolm Browne, were later accosted by police and taken away for questioning on suspicion of attacking police officers. After their release, the journalists went to the US embassy in Saigon to complain about their treatment and asked for US government protection. Their appeals were dismissed, as was a direct appeal to the White House. Vietnamese Buddhists reacted to the incident by contending that Diệm’s men were planning to assassinate monks, while Madame Ngô Đình Nhu repeated earlier claims that the US government had been trying to overthrow her brother-in-law. Photographs of Arnett's bloodied face, published in newspapers worldwide, drew further negative attention to the behaviour of the Diệm régime amidst the backdrop of the Buddhist crisis. (more...)

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August 4: Constitution Day in the Cook Islands (1965)

1327 – First War of Scottish Independence: James Douglas led a raid into Weardale and almost killed Edward III of England.

1903 – Italian cardinal Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was elected to become Pope Pius X.

1964 – A second U.S. Navy destroyer was reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese forces in the Gulf of Tonkin, sparking Congress to authorize the use of military force in Southeast Asia.

1992 – Yōhei Kōno (pictured), Chief Cabinet Secretary of Japan, issued a formal apology for forcing Korean women into sexual slavery during World War II.

2007 – Airport police officer María del Luján Telpuk discovered a suitcase containing US$800,000 as it went through an x-ray machine in Buenos Aires, sparking an international scandal involving Venezuela and Argentina known as "Maletinazo".

More anniversaries: August 3 – August 4 – August 5

An illustration depicting an ancient Mexican calendar. The Maya and Aztec calendars are the most familiar of the Mexican calendars, but similar ones were used by other cultures. Common to all Mesoamerican cultures was the 260-day ritual calendar that had no confirmed correlation to astronomical or agricultural cycles. These were used in combination with a separate 365-day calendar to create a 52-year cycle known as a calendar round. Artist: A. de Leon y Gama; Restoration: Garrondo/Lise Broer Recently featured: Lake Pedder, Tasmania – Russet potato – Spitzkoppe, Namib Desert Archive – More featured pictures...