On April 30

On this day in ...
... 2003 (5 years ago today), about 6 weeks after a U.S.-led coalition had invaded Iraq and put its President, Saddam Hussein, to flight, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer declared: ''It is the fact that major combat operations have ended.'' The same day, the New York Times published a "lessons learned" analysis of the operations that were said to have come to an end. In fact, combat continued; as we've tracked, servicemember casualties now exceed 4,365 (with U.S. troop deaths in April at a 7-month high), while a low estimate places Iraqi civilian casualties at 83,221 children, women, and men.
... 1952, The Diary of a Young Girl by the late Anne Frank (right), who lived in hiding in Amsterdam before Nazis transported her and her family to concentration camps, was made available in English. First published in Dutch as Het Achterhuis in 1947, the memoir since has been issued in 50 different languages. (photo credit)

On August 4, ...

... 1947 (60 years ago today), during the period of Allied occupation that followed World War II, a Chief Justice and 14 associate Justices were sworn in to mark the birth of the Supreme Court of Japan. Among the current Justices is 1 woman. Kazuko Yokoo (left) was appointed in 2001, culminating a long career in civil service. Most recently she was Japan's Ambassador to Ireland. Profiling the Court were several articles in the International Journal of Constitutional Law (April 2007).
... 1944, having been betrayed, a group of Jewish persons who'd been living for 2 years in a Secret Annex, among them 15-year-old Anne Frank, was arrested in Amsterdam. Within half a year Anne (right) and her sister, Margot, would die in the Nazis' Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. In 1947, Anne's father published the diary she kept while in hiding. It's "been translated into 67 languages and is one of the most widely read books in the world."