Today in history

Those who do not learn history are doomed to use this quote over and over again.

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January 26

1699 The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.

1720 Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country's empire.

1788 A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia's national day.

1861 Louisiana secedes from the Union.

1863 President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

1875 Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.

1885 General "Chinese" Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.

1924 Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.

1934 Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.

1942 American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.

1943 The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.

1964 Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.

1969 California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.

2005 Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet.
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January 27

1695 Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II.

1825 Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."

1862 President Abraham Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union armies.

1900 Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demand that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels.

1905 Russian General Kuropatkin takes the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under General Oyama suffer heavy casualties.

1916 President Woodrow Wilson opens preparedness program.

1918 Communists attempt to seize power in Finland.

1924 Lenin's body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin.

1935 A League of Nations majority favors depriving Japan of mandates.

1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves the sale of U.S. war planes to France.

1941 The United States and Great Britain begin high-level military talks in Washington.

1943 The first U.S. raids on the Reich blast Wilhelmshaven base and Emden.

1959 NASA selects 110 candidates for the first U.S. space flight.

1965 Military leaders oust the civilian government of Tran Van Huong in Saigon.

1967 Three astronauts are killed in a flash fire that engulfed their Apollo 1 spacecraft.

1973 A cease fire in Vietnam is called as the Paris peace accords are signed by the United States and North Vietnam.

1978 The State Supreme Court rules that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie, Illinois.

1985 Pope John Paul says mass to one million in Venezuela.
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January 28

28 The Roman Emperor Nerva names Trajan, an army general, as his successor.

1547 Henry VIII of England dies and is succeeded by his nine-year-old son Edward VI.

1757 Ahmed Shah, the first King of Afghanistan, occupies Delhi and annexes the Punjab.

1792 Rebellious slaves in Santo Domingo launch an attack on the city of Cap.

1871 Surrounded by Prussian troops and suffering from famine, the French army in Paris surrenders. During the siege, balloons were used to keep contact with the outside world.

1915 The U.S. Coast Guard is founded to fight contraband trade and aid distressed vessels at sea.

1915 The German navy attacks the U.S. freighter William P. Frye, loaded with wheat for Britain.

1921 Albert Einstein startles Berlin by suggesting the possibility of measuring the universe.

1932 The Japanese attack Shanghai, China, and declare martial law.

1936 A fellow prison inmate slashes infamous kidnapper, Richard Loeb, to death.

1941 French General Charles DeGaulle's Free French forces sack south Libya oasis.

1945 Chiang Kai-shek renames the Ledo-Burma Road the Stilwell Road, in honor of General Joseph Stilwell.

1955 The U.S. Congress passes a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan.

1964 The Soviets down a U.S. jet over East Germany killing three.

1970 Israeli fighter jets attack the suburbs of Cairo.

1986 The space shuttle Challenger explodes just after liftoff.
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January 29

1813 Jane Austin publishes Pride and Prejudice.

1861 Kansas is admitted into the Union as the 34th state.

1862 William Quantrill and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.

1918 The Supreme Allied Council meets at Versailles.

1926 Violette Neatley Anderson becomes the first African-American woman admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.

1931 Winston Churchill resigns as Stanley Baldwin's aide.

1942 German and Italian troops take Benghazi in North Africa.

1944 The world's greatest warship, Missouri, is launched.

1950 Riots break out in Johannesburg, South Africa, over the policy of Apartheid.

1967 Thirty-seven civilians are killed by a U.S. helicopter attack in Vietnam.

1979 President Jimmy Carter commutes the sentence of Patty Hearst.

1984 President Ronald Reagan announces that he will run for a second term.

1984 The Soviets issue a formal complaint against alleged U.S. arms treaty violations.

1991 Iraqi forces attack into Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, but are turned back by Coalition forces.
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January 30

1649 Charles I of England is beheaded at Whitehall by the executioner Richard Brandon.

1844 Richard Theodore Greener becomes the first African American to graduate from Harvard University.

1862 The USS Monitor is launched at Greenpoint, Long Island.

1901 Women Prohibitionists smash 12 saloons in Kansas.

1912 The British House of Lords opposes the House of Commons by rejecting home rule for Ireland.

1931 The United States awards civil government to the Virgin Islands.

1933 Adolf Hitler is named Chancellor by President Paul Hindenburg.

1936 Governor Harold Hoffman orders a new inquiry into the Lindbergh kidnapping.

1943 Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus surrenders himself and his staff to Red Army troops in Stalingrad.

1945 The Allies launch a drive on the Siegfried line in Germany.

1949 In India, 100,000 people pray at the site of Gandhi's assassination on the first anniversary of his death.

1953 President Dwight Eisenhower announces that he will pull the Seventh Fleet out of Formosa to permit the Nationalists to attack Communist China.

1964 The Ranger spacecraft, equipped with six TV cameras, is launched to the moon from Cape Canaveral.

1972 British troops shoot dead 14 Irish civilians in Derry, Ireland. The day is forever remembered in Ireland as 'Bloody Sunday.'

1976 The U.S. Supreme Court bans spending limits in campaigns, equating funds with freedom of speech.

1980 The first-ever Chinese Olympic team arrives in New York for the Winter Games at Lake Placid.
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January 31

1606 Guy Fawkes is hanged, drawn and quartered for his part in the Gunpowder Plot, an attempt to blow up Parliament.

1620 Virginia colony leaders write to the Virginia Company in England, asking for more orphaned apprentices for employment.

1788 The Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart dies.

1835 A man with two pistols misfires at President Andrew Jackson at the White House.

1865 House of Representatives approves a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

1911 The German Reichstag exempts royal families from tax obligations.

1915 Germans use poison gas on the Russians at Bolimov.

1915 German U-boats sink two British steamers in the English Channel.

1916 President Woodrow Wilson refuses the compromise on Lusitania reparations.

1917 Germany resumes unlimited sub warfare, warning that all neutral ships that are in the war zone will be attacked.

1935 The Soviet premier tells Japan to get out of Manchuria.

1943 The Battle of Stalingrad ends as small groups of German soldiers of the Sixth Army surrender to the victorious Red Army forces.

1944 U.S. troops under Vice Adm. Spruance land on Kwajalien atoll in the Marshall Islands.

1950 Paris protests the Soviet recognition of Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

1966 U.S. planes resume bombing of North Vietnam after a 37-day pause.

1968 In Vietnam, the Tet Offensive begins as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attack strategic and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam.

1976 Ernesto Miranda, famous from the Supreme Court ruling on Miranda vs. Arizona is stabbed to death.

1981 Lech Walesa announces an accord in Poland, giving Saturdays off to laborers.
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0141 6th predicted perihelion passage of Halley's Comet
1345 Saturn/Jupiter/Mars-conjunction; thought "cause of plague epidemic"
1525 Paris' parliament begins pursuit of Protestants
1569 Duke van Alva leads "tenth penning" in Ponts the Cé
1598 French king Henri IV & duke van Mercour sign treaty
1602 United Dutch East Indian Company (VOC) forms
1616 Walter Raleigh released from Tower of London to seek gold in Guyana
1627 France & Spain signs accord for fighting protestantism
1697 Willem de Vlamingh returns to Batavia after exploring "South Land"
1760 Great Fire of Boston destroys 349 buildings
1800 French army defeats Turks at Helipolis Turkey, & advance to Cairo
1814 Prince Willem Frederik becomes monarch of Netherlands
1815 Napoleon enters Paris after escape from Elba, begins 100-day rule
1816 US Supreme Court affirms its right to review state court decisions
1833 US & Siam conclude commercial treaty
1848 King Louis I of Bayern abdicates to marry dancer Lola Montez
1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published (Boston)
1863 Battle of Pensacola FL: evacuated by Federals
1865 2nd day of Battle of Bentonville NC
1865 Michigan authorizes workers' cooperatives
1868 Jesse James Gang robs bank in Russelville KY of $14,000
1883 Unity treaty of Paris signed; protects industrial property
1885 John Matzeliger of Suriname patents shoe lacing machine
1885 Yiddish theater opens in New York with Golldfaden operetta
1886 1st AC power plant in US begins commercial operation, Massachusetts
1888 Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure, "A Scandal in Bohemia"
1890 General Federation of Womens' Clubs founded
1890 German emperor Wilhelm II fires republic chancellor Otto Von Bismarck
1896 Marines land in Nicaragua to protect US citizens
1896 Uprising in Matabeleland
1897 1st known intercollegiate basketball game, Yale beats University of Pennsylvania 32-10
1897 1st US orthodox Jewish Rabbinical seminary (RIETS) incorporates in New York
1897 France signs treaty with emperor Menelik II of Abyssinia
1906 George B Shaw's "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" premieres in London
1911 National Squah Tennis Association formed (New York NY)
1911 Winter Garden Theater opens at 1634 Broadway NYC
1914 1st international figure-skating tournament held in US, New Haven
1916 Allies attack Zeebrugge Belgium
1920 1st flight from London to South Africa lands (1½ months)
1920 US Ladies Figure Skating Championship won by Theresa Weld
1920 US Men's Figure Skating Championship won by Sherwin Badger
1922 USS Langley is commissioned, Navy's 1st aircraft Carrier
1922 WIP-AM in Philadelphia PA begins radio transmissions
1923 Bavarian minister of Interior refuses to forbid Nazi SA
1923 Belgian Senate rejects Dutch University in Ghent
1924 Finnair begins scheduled flight of Helsinki-Tallinn
1924 Stanley Cup: Montréal Canadiens (NHL) sweep Vancouver Millionaires (PCHA) in 2
1930 Clessie Cummins sets diesel engine speed record of 129.39 kph
1931 Bishop Schreiber warns against national-socialism in Berlin
1932 Kara-Kalpak Autonomous Region in RSFSR becomes Kara-Kalpak ASSR
1933 Dachau, 1st concentration camp, completed
1934 Female Babe Didrickson pitches hitless inning for Philadelphia A's in exhibition game against Brooklyn Dodgers
1934 Test of practical radar apparatus made by Rudolf Kuhnold in Kiel Germany
1935 "Your Hit Parade" made its debut on radio
1937 Franco-offensive at Guadalajara Spain
1939 7,000 Jews flee German occupied Memel Lithuania
1940 Paul Reynoud becomes French premier
1941 Nazi-German/Yugoslav pact drawn
1942 Convoy PQ13 departs Reykjavik Iceland to Russia
1942 General MacArthur vows, "I shall return"
1942 Major German assault on Malta
1943 British offensive against Mareth-line
1943 German U-384 bombed & sinks
1944 Bus falls off bridge into Passaic River NJ, killing 16
1944 Mount Vesuvius, Italy explodes
1945 US 70th Infantry division/7th Armour division attack Saar
1946 Belgian government of Spaak, resigns
1947 180-metric ton blue whale (record) caught in South Atlantic
1948 1st live televised musical Eugene Ormandy on CBS followed in 90 minutes by 2nd live televised musical Arturo Toscanini on NBC
1948 20th Academy Awards: "Gentleman's Agreement", Ronald Colman, Loretta Young win
1951 Indonesian army offensive against Darul Islam on Java
1952 24th Academy Awards: "American in Paris", Humphrey Bogart & Vivian Leigh win
1952 US Senate's final ratification of peace treaty restoring sovereignty to Japan
1953 Senator Edwin C Johnson offers a bill to give clubs the sole right to ban radio-TV broadcasts of major league games in their own territory
1954 "King & I" closes at St James Theater NYC after 1246 performances
1954 16th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: La Salle beats Bradley 92-76
1954 1st newspaper vending machine used (Columbia Pennsylvania)
1955 KXTV TV channel 10 in Sacramento CA (CBS) begins broadcasting
1956 E Ochab succeeds Beirut as 1st Secretary of Polish CP
1956 Mount Bezymianny on Kamchatka Peninsula (USSR) explodes
1956 Tunisia gains independence from France
1956 Union workers ended a 156-day strike at Westinghouse Electric Corp
1956 USSR performs nuclear test
1957 Britain accepts NATO offer to mediate in Cyprus, but Greece rejects it
1958 50" snow across the Mason-Dixon line
1958 Greek Clandestine Burasi Bizim Radio (communist), Voice of Truth 1st transmission
1962 Sjoukje Dijkstra becomes world champion figure skater
1963 1st "Pop Art" exhibition (New York NY)
1963 Sikkim crown prince Paldan Thondup Namgyal marries Hope Cooke
1964 ESRO established, European Space Research Organization
1965 27th NCAA Men's Basketball Championship: UCLA beats Michigan 91-80
1965 Venkataraghavan takes 8-72 vs New Zealand at Delhi
1966 Marilynn Smith wins LPGA St Petersburg Women's Golf Open
1967 Supremes release "The Happening"
1967 WOET (now WPTD) TV channel 16 in Dayton OH (PBS) begins broadcasting
1968 Military intervene in South-Yemen (leftist ministers resign)
1968 President Lyndon Johnson signs a bill removing gold backing from US paper money
1969 Abebe Bikila's auto-accident, near Addis Ababa
1969 Beatle John Lennon marries Yoko Ono in Gibraltar
1969 US President Nixon proclaims he will end Vietnam war in 1970
1971 Boston Bruins win 13th straight NHL game
1972 19 mountain climbers killed on Japan's Mount Fuji during an avalanche
1972 Sicco L. Mansholt succeeds Franco M. Malfatti as chairman of European Committee
1973 Roberto Clemente elected to hall of fame, 11 weeks after his death
1976 Jevgeni Kulikov skates world record 1000 meter (1:15.70)
1976 Patricia Hearst convicted of armed robbery
1977 Parisians elect former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac as 1st mayor in a century
1977 Premier Indira Gandhi loses election in India
1978 Flyers' Rick MacLeash scores on 6th penalty shot against Islanders
1979 Columbia flies on Shuttle carrier aircraft to Kennedy Space Center
1980 The Mi Amigo ship containing England's pirate Radio Caroline sinks
1980 US appeals to International Court on hostages in Iran
1981 Argentine ex-President Isabel Perón sentenced to 8 years
1981 Jean Harris sentenced 15-to-life for slaying of Scarsdale Diet Doctor
1982 1st-class debut of Richie Richardson, Leeward Islands vs Barbados
1982 France performs nuclear test
1982 Joan Jett & Blackhearts' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" goes #1 for 7 weeks
1982 Reverend A Treurnicht forms Conservative Party of South Africa
1983 Kathy Whitworth wins LPGA Women's Kemper Golf Open
1984 Andy Kaufman & Fred Blassie's "My Breakfast With Blassie" premieres
1984 Senate rejects amendment to permit spoken prayer in public schools
1985 Libby Riddles is 1st woman to win Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race
1986 228 KPH gust of wind strikes Cairngorm (UK record)
1986 Jacques Chirac become Prime Minister of French government
1987 FDA approves sale of AZT (AIDS treatment)
1987 NASA launches Palapa B2P
1987 Soap opera "Capitol" final episode
1987 Soviet filmmakers arrive in Hollywood for an entertainment summit
1987 Yvonne van Gennip skates ladies world record 5 km (7 :0.36)
1988 David Henry Hwang's "M Butterfly" premieres in New York NY
1988 Laura Davies wins Circle K LPGA Tucson Golf Open
1988 Mike Tyson KOs Tony Tubbs in 2 for heavyweight boxing title
1989 Baseball announces Reds manager Pete Rose is under investigation
1989 Richard J Kerr replaces Robert M Gates as deputy director of CIA
1990 Los Angeles Lakers retire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's #33
1990 Singer Gloria Estefan breaks her collarbone in a bus accident
1991 Court awards Peggy Lee $3 million in contract violation suit against Disney
1991 Michael Jackson signs $65M six album deal with Sony records
1991 Supreme Court rules unanimously employers can't exclude women from jobs where exposure to toxic chemicals could potentially damage fetus
1991 US forgives $2 billion in loans to Poland
1992 Janice Pennington is awarded $1.3M for accident on Price is Right set
1992 Noriega's wife Felicidad arrested for stealing buttons from dresses
1993 Dan Jansen skates world record 500 meter (36.02 seconds)
1993 IRA-bomb kills 3 year old in Warrington England
1993 Morton Downey Jr weds Lori Krebs
1994 "Cyrano: The Musical" closes at Neil Simon NYC after 137 performances
1994 "Flowering Peach" opens at Lyceum Theater NYC for 41 performances
1994 "No Man's Land" closes at Criterion Theater NYC after 61 performances
1994 14th Golden Raspberry Awards: Indecent Proposal wins
1994 El Salvador's 1st Presidential election following 12-year-old civil war
1994 Laura Davies wins LPGA Standard Register Ping Golf Tournament
1994 Mashonaland U-24 beat Matabeleland on 1st inn to win Logan Cup
1994 Wrestlemania X at Madison Square Garden New York, Bret Hart pins Yokozuna to win WWF championship
1994 Zulu-king Goodwill Zwelithini founds realm in South Africa
1995 Beatles song, "Free As A Bird", with late John Lennon as lead singer, is released, 1st Fab Four single since their 1970 breakup
1995 Dow-Jones hits 4083.68 (record)
1995 Poison Gas released in Tokyo subway 12 killed, 4,700 injured
1996 "Love Thy Neighbor" opens at Booth Theater NYC
1996 Erik & Lyle Menendez found guilty of killing their parents
1996 UK admits humans can catch CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease aka Mad Cow Disease)
1997 "Play On!" opens at Brooks Atkinson Theater NYC for 61 performances
1997 Liggett admits cigarettes are addictive


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Post by Damelon »

Aug. 11, 1942: Actress + Piano Player = New Torpedo
By Tony Long 12 Hours Ago


Actress Hedy Lamarr familiarized herself with military weaponry while married to her first husband, an Austrian munitions manufacturer.

1942: Hedy Lamarr, once described by German actor-director Max Reinhardt as "the most beautiful woman in Europe," receives a U.S. patent for a frequency-hopping device designed to guide radio-controlled torpedoes while making them more difficult to detect in the water. Holding the patent with her is George Antheil.

It's the incongruity of the patent holders with their invention, as much as the invention itself, that is remarkable. Lamarr, a Viennese-born movie actress, would eventually be given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Antheil, an American avant-garde composer of orchestral music and opera, lived in Paris during the '20s and counted Ernest Hemingway and Igor Stravinsky among his friends.

Not exactly the kind of folks you picture tinkering with cutting-edge weapons of war. In fact, their device was way ahead of its time. Although it was patented at the height of World War II, frequency hopping relied on electronics technology that didn't exist yet. An updated version of the Lamarr-Antheil device finally appeared on U.S. Navy ships in 1962 (three years after their patent expired), and was first used during the Cuban missile crisis.

In 1942, though, Navy brass were unimpressed, dismissing the invention as too bulky to fit inside a torpedo. Antheil's arguments to the contrary were ignored, and he said later that comparing parts of the invention to the fundamental mechanism of a player piano in front of a bunch of naval officers had probably been a mistake.

"'My god,' I can see them saying, 'we shall put a player piano in a torpedo.'"

Lamarr and Antheil dropped the idea and turned to other things. In the end, their device was resurrected by engineers at Sylvania and proved to be one of the forerunners of spread-spectrum communications, which has applications in satellite systems and cellphone technology.

Lamarr was the quintessential beauty with brains. (She was contemptuous of many of her fellow actresses: "Any girl can be glamorous," she said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid.") She was mathematically gifted and became acquainted with the intricacies of modern weaponry while married to her first husband, an Austrian munitions manufacturer.
Having established herself acting in German films, Lamarr came in 1937 to the United States, where she signed with Louis B. Mayer and MGM. It was Mayer who got her to change her name, from Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler to Hedy Lamarr. She enjoyed a solid career in Hollywood, although other leading ladies of the day, such as Ingrid Bergman, eclipsed her as a box-office draw.

Then there was George Antheil.

Aside from his provocative compositions and eccentric skills as a pianist -- his jarring technique frequently agitated his audiences, to the point where he would lay a pistol on the piano as a warning to keep quiet -- Antheil was very much a Renaissance man. He wrote widely on a variety of subjects, penning a syndicated advice column to the lovelorn and writing about endocrinology for Esquire magazine. He also published a book on the subject, Every Man His Own Detective: A Study of Glandular Endocrinology.

During World War II -- which he had accurately predicted would start in Europe with the German invasion of Poland -- Antheil served as a war correspondent.

It was Antheil's knowledge of endocrinology, in fact, that began the Lamarr-Antheil collaboration. Aware of his work in the field, Lamarr approached him at a Hollywood dinner party to talk about the possibility of increasing the size of her breasts. The next thing you know -- bang! -- a revolutionary torpedo-guidance system. We'll just leave it there.
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Post by Earthwalker »

This Day In History: 1995

OJ Simpson is aquitted of murder.
Destroy all that which is Evil, so that Good may flourish. -MacManus Bros.
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Post by Earthwalker »

October 7, 1960

2nd John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon debate
Destroy all that which is Evil, so that Good may flourish. -MacManus Bros.
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Post by lorin »

On February 25th in:


1570 Pope Pius V excommunicated England's Queen Elizabeth I.


1793 George Washington convened the first Cabinet meeting on record - at his home.


1836 Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver.


1901 United States Steel Corp. was incorporated by J.P. Morgan.


1913 The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving Congress the power to levy and collect income taxes, was declared in effect.


1940 A hockey game was televised for the first time, by New York City station W2XBS. (The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-2 at Madison Square Garden.)


1943 Beatles guitarist George Harrison was born in Liverpool, England.


1948 Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia.


1950 "Your Show of Shows" debuted on NBC.


1956 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev harshly criticized the late Josef Stalin in a speech before a Communist Party congress in Moscow.


1964 Cassius Clay (who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) became the world heavyweight boxing champion by defeating Sonny Liston in Miami Beach.


1983 Playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead at age 71.


1986 President Ferdinand E. Marcos fled the Philippines after 20 years of rule in the wake of a tainted election. Corazon Aquino assumed the presidency.


1990 Nicaraguans voted in an election that led to victory for opponents of the ruling Sandinistas.


1991 An Iraqi Scud missile hit a U.S. barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 Americans during the Persian Gulf War.


1994 American-born Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein opened fire inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank, killing 29 Muslims before he was beaten to death by worshippers.


1999 A jury in Jasper, Texas, sentenced white supremacist John William King to death for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr., a black man.


2000 A jury in Albany, N.Y., acquitted four white New York City police officers of all charges in the shooting death of unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo.


2002 Former NBA star Jayson Williams was charged in the shooting death of a limousine driver. (Williams was later acquitted of manslaughter, but the jury deadlocked on another charge.)


2005 Dennis Rader was arrested for the BTK serial killings that terrorized Wichita, Kan. (He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 life prison terms.)
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Post by peter »

Apparently today (or maybe yestrday) Osama bin Laden has been killed by American troops in Pakisthan. Thats going to be history isn't it?
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
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Post by peter »

This seems a good place to remember that today was the day seventy years ago that we took our first punt at mass scale killing with a thermonuclear device. Thankfully we only ever took one more, but it's been a close run thing at times. The news reports last night showed models of the victims [because civillians are victims in a case like this] in the Hiroshima memorial museum, with the flesh peeling from their bodies like molten wax. A conservative estimate puts the tally of people killed on those two days at around 200,000.

Lets not forget.
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....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

The estimated numbers of deaths from an invasion of Okinawa and then mainland Japan itself were running as high as 500,000. Make no mistake about it--the military leaders at the time were moving ahead with invasion plans similar to the ones they used for D-Day even they knew (well, some of them knew and some of them didn't) what was going on in Alamagordo. No one was certain that Manhattan would produce results, much less work like it was supposed to, including the scientists working on the project.

Ironically, dropping Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved lives. Even though they saw what the explosion would be like from the Trinity test they still didn't fully comprehend what would happen when they used it on a real city with real people.

The other legacy from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the one that anti-nuke and/or anti-United States people won't tell you, is that because of those two bombs no one else has ever dared to use a nuclear weapon in combat. Collectively, we learned out lesson about what not to do. The reason they won't tell you that is because they are typically too busy trying to shame us, as if dropping an atomic bomb (we call them nuclear now) is somehow worse than carpet-bombing cities like Dresden (which gave us the term "firestorm", a massive blaze of such size and intensity that it creates localized weather patterns of its own), forced death marches, chemical warfare, land mines, V-2 rockets, or any of the other atrocities which are normally conducted as part of waging war.

I suspect that many people in Korea and China don't feel sorry that Japan had two nuclear bombs dropped on it. Both countries were brutalized by Japan during the 30s and 40s.
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Post by peter »

I'm in complete agreement with your post Hashi; the purpose of mine was not to point an acusatory finger but to lament loss of life - lest we forget.
The truth is a Lion and does not need protection. Once free it will look after itself.

....and the glory of the world becomes less than it was....
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Post by Hashi Lebwohl »

I believe you.

I am pretty sure that most of the people involved in the Manhattan Project would have abandoned it had they stopped to realize exactly what the end results of their work would have been. They weren't stupid--they knew they were building a mega-bomb--but I don't think they realized what its real-life immediate aftereffects would look like. Even if they had all walked off the project there were others would have stepped in the finish it--Oppenheimer and Einstein refused to work on the hydrogen bomb but Teller was both willing and able to put it together.

Still...you are correct--we shouldn't forget those who were bombed because virtually all the victims were civilians, not military. The targets were chosen for their military purposes but everyone know many civilians would die.

Truthfully, I do not know why Hiroshima was chosen as the first target. If you are going to drop a device like that and you are trying to end a war quickly then you go for the capital city...but that is another discussion for another thread.
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Not to mention that it may have been done in error...apparently the reply to Truman's threat was mistranslated as "contemptuously reject" instead of "consider."

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While the remainder of the C.20 may not have been totally war-free, there is little doubt that the reverberating shock-wave of the total destruction levied by a nuclear blast around the world, reduced the number of deaths in the remaining part of the century by millions if not tens of millions.
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