On this day in ...… 1947, Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (left) was born in Paris, France. (photo credit) In 1983, while researching retroviruses at Paris'Institut Pasteur , she discovered the HIV virus. Together with her boss, she was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery. She is currently the director of the Unité de Régulation des Infections Rétrovirales at the Institut. In 2009, Barré-Sinoussi wrote an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI to protes his statements that condoms are at best ineffective in combating HIV/AIDS.
… 1863, President Abraham Lincoln (right) issued the "eye-for-eye" order to shoot rebel prisoners under certain circumstances. (photo credit) Known as the Order of Retaliation, it stated:
It is … ordered that for every soldier of the United States killed in violation of the laws of war, a rebel soldier shall be executed; and for every one enslaved by the enemy or sold into slavery, a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard labor on the public works and continued at such labor until the other shall be released and receive the treatment due to a prisoner of war.
(Prior July 30 posts are here and here.)
