Incidents on August 5, 2016

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The day began quietly. Most people in the world got through their morning with their favorite breakfast drink and a croissant.

The following are what we are hearing for the events that have occurred on Friday, August 5, 2016.

Jens Preshaw Photo.

USA Today reported that the

...iconic Eiffel Tower in Paris was evacuated Friday night [August 5, 2016], then French police said it was a false alarm, according to Reuters and other media reports.
Armed police and soldiers searched tourists and had cordoned off the area, the U.K.'s Daily Star and Daily Mirror reported. Witnesses posted a series of images and videos on social media of the evacuation.
The Braderie de Lille annual flea market, which attracts visitors from across France and scheduled for Sept. 3 and 4, was canceled for security reasons, Martine Aubry, the mayor of the northern French city announced earlier Friday. It is the latest summer festival to be canceled in the country due to a fear of terror attacks.
The country has seen a spate of attacks in the last 18 months, including the attacks in Paris in November that left 130 dead, the attack in Nice in July that left 85 dead [the total went up from the earlier 84] and the murder of a French priest in Normandy last week.

Twitter reports talk about an out-of-place backpack or misplaced piece of luggage near the Eiffel Tower, as the cause of this alert.

John Hinckley, Jr., the attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan, was given his release to his family today, August 5, 2016.

Rio2016, the Summer Olympics of 2016, opened in Brazil on August 5, 2016.

Six suspects were arrested in a raid Friday morning [August 5, 2016] on Batam, an Indonesian island near Singapore, police said. 

The suspects were allegedly planning a rocket attack on the Marina Bay Sands resort, a major hotel, retail and entertainment hub in Singapore, Indonesian National Police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told CNN.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2016/08/05/asia/indonesia-terror-plot-arrests/index.html

Thirteen people died in a fire late Friday [August 5, 2016] night in northern France when fire broke out in a bar full of patrons celebrating someone's birthday, according to reports.

The fire was started by an accidental explosion in a bar known as Cuba Libre in the town of Rouen in Normandy, local media reported.

Eight people dead were initially reported dead and several others wounded, fire department officials said.

The number of victims climbed to 13 early Saturday, according to Paris-Normandie, a local news website.

At least six people were wounded, according to reports. 

The bar was full of young people celebrating someone's birthday, officials said.

The terrible news had many in France on edge even as officials said preliminary investigations pointed to an accidental explosion sparking the deadly flames.

The region of Normandy still reeling from a deadly, ISIS-inspired church attack July 17 that left a priest dead, just as France is struggling after a spate of deadly terrorist attacks at home and neighboring Belgium. 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/fire-france-bar-packed-birthday-celebration-kills-13-article-1.2740357

At least 42 people were injured when a fence collapsed during rapper Snoop Dogg’s concert in New Jersey Friday night, authorities said.

The incident in Camden on Friday night sent fans over the ledge at the outdoor BB&T Pavilion around 10:25 p.m. ET, fire officials said.

Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa were performing at the time, media sources are reporting.

[This is a live blog posting. It will be updated in real time if there are any major breaking news incidents.] 

Croissants & August 5th

August 5, 2016 is the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Petrovaradin or Peterwardein, a decisive victory for Austrian forces in the war between Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Ottoman Empire of August 5, 1716, at Petrovaradin (then part of Military Frontier, Habsburg Monarchy; today part of Novi Sad, Vojvodina, Serbia). This was the beginning of the end of the Ottomans. After the war, a church commemorating this event was built on Tekije, on the hill over battlefield, and is dedicated to Our Lady of Tekije, also known as Our Lady of the Snows. The church is special, because it has both Catholic and Orthodox altars and both Christian denominations use it. The site is a place of pilgrimage on every August 5.

After the battles that defeated the Ottomans, they had lost most of their European domains 300 years ago. "Viennese bakers celebrated their deliverance with what came to be called the croissant, a pastry in the shape of the Muslim crescent. Take a bite out of Islam?" notes one anti-jihadist site. 

The other date linked to this story is - September 11, 1638.

The earliest story dates to 1683, during the Ottoman Turks siege of Vienna. Legend has it that a baker working late at night heard the Turks tunneling under the walls of the city and alerted the military.
The military collapsed the tunnel in on the Turks and eliminated the threat, saving the city. The baker baked a crescent shaped pastry in the shape of the Turk’s Islamic emblem, the crescent moon, so that when his fellow Austrians bit into the croissant, they would be symbolically devouring the Turks. Source.

Many people have heard that the croissant was created in 1686 in Budapest, Hungary by a courageous and watchful baker, at a time when the city was being attacked by the Turks. Working late one night, he heard odd rumbling noises and alerted the city's military leaders. They found that the Turks were trying to get into the city by tunnelling under the city's walls. The tunnel was destroyed and the baker was a hero, but a humble hero — all he wanted in reward was the sole right to bake a special pastry commemorating the fight. The pastry was shaped like a crescent, the symbol of Islam, and presumably meant that the Hungarians had eaten the Turks for lunch.

This merely demonstrates the many-sourced legendary nature of the croissant origins story.

The connection between the croissant as an anti-Islamist symbol is clear, nevertheless.

The 100th anniversary of the August 5, 1916, World War I, Battle of Romani, in which the Allied forces, under the command of Archibald Murray, defeat an attacking Ottoman army under the command of Friedrich Freiherr Kress von Kressenstein, securing the Suez Canal and beginning the Ottoman retreat from the Sinai Peninsula.

Two major defeats for the Ottomans and Islam, on August 5th. The invention of the croissant tied to August 5th. In the midst of war, history must not be forgotten, overlooked, or ignored. Radical terrorists are attuned to twilight language.

Awareness is key. Keep your guard up. Be safe.

August 5, 2016, is Friday.