29 August

Interior of the cathedral in Brasilia,
capital of Brazil

Seven years ago, on 29 August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and indeed a large part of the US Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida. It left more than 1 800 people dead and more than  $80 billion in damage.

On this day in 1842, Portugal recognized the Independence of Brazil, after a bitter war of independence following Dom Pedro I being declared Emperor of Brazil on 12 October 1822.  The country became a republic in 1889 and is today the largest country in South America and the 5th largest in the world.

A little more than a century later, in 1949, the Soviet Union became the second country to test an atomic weapon - a 22 kiloton device nickknamed 'First Lightning'. I do wish the US and Russia never started the nuclear arms race and were not subsequently joined by the other countries who developed those weapons of mass destruction...

Today also marks something more upbeat, but which was part of another race between the US and the then USSR: the space race.  On this day in 1965,  the Gemini V spacecraft returned to Earth with the two American astronauts Charles Conrad and Gordon Cooper, after orbiting the Earth for more than a week - a record at the time.  Just 4 years later, man would land on our Moon. 

The death of Leonardo da Vinci by Ingres

Finally, two birthdays; the famous French neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was born on 29 August 1780. He shared a birthday with among others Henry V, King of England (1387).