This Day in History

[Amnorix]

Today...

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by JOhn

Today in history, 24 Aug 1944, Operation
Goodwood III: British carrier aircraft (33 Barracuda dive bombers, 10
Hellcat fighters, 5 Corsair fighters, 29 other fighters) from HMS
Indefatigable, Furious, and Formidable attacked German battleship
Tirpitz, scoring 2 hits.

The Tirpitz is an interesting story. She never really left any of her bases, and stayed in Germany and barelyf ired a shot the whole war, but her mere presence, as behemoth sister-ship to the Bismarck, tied up signifciant British naval forces and caused more worry to the British Naval High Command than one can possibly imagine today.

[Amnorix]

August 24

79. Mount Vesuvius erupts, burying the cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae in volcanic ash.

410. Just a bad day for the Romans in history. The Visigoths under Alaric sack Rome, beginning the traditional three days of rape, pillage and plunder.

1349. Six thousand Jews, blamed for spreading bubonic plague, are killed in Mainz.

1814. Continuing the general theme of humiliation for the Americans in the War of 1812, the British invade Washington, DC, and burn down the White House and several other buildings.

1857. The Panic of 1857, one of the most severe economic crisis in US history, begins.

1932. Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly across the US, non-stop.

1960. A temperature of -128.6 degrees fahrenheit is recorded in Vostok, Antarctica, a world record low.

1989. Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti bans Pete Rose for life from baseball for betting on games.

1992. Hurricane Andrew, a category 5 hurricane, hits southern Florida.

1995. Microsoft releases Windows 95.

2006. The International Astronomical Union redines the definition of a planet, kicking Pluto out.

[Sofa King]

Pluto today...... not doing so well....

[Amnorix]

August 25

1609. Galileo Galilei demonstrates his first telescope to the Venetian Senate.

1944. Paris is liberated by Allied forces.

1950. During the Korean War, President Truman orders the US Army to seize control of the nation's railways to avert a potentially crippling strike.

[Amnorix]

August 26

1071. The Battle of Manzikert. One of the most significant battles in history, this battle was fought between the Seljuk Turks under Alp Arslan and Byzantine forces under the direct and personal command of Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes. The battle was a complete victory for the Turks, who captured the Emperor. More important were its long term ramifications -- the loss resulted in years of internal strife in the Empire, and loss of control over its borders with the result that an increasing number of Turks moving into the Anatolian heartland (the area we now know as Turkey), which had historically been the Empire's great breadbasket and mustering grounds for troops.

What makes it all the more tragic for Byzantium is that the battle need never have taken place. Byzantium had inflicted a stinging defeat on the Turks only a year earlier in defense of its borders, and Mazikert was the culmination of a war of further punishment/conquest undertaken by the Byzantine Emperor. Further, the Sultan had offered terms to the Emperor to induce his withdrawal, which the Emperor rejected, to the lasting misfortune of himself and his Empire.

Originally Posted by Historian John Julius Norwich

(the Battle of Mazikert was the Byzantine Empire's "greatest disaster suffered . . . in its seven and a half centuries of existence" and its "death blow, though centuries remained before the remnant fell. The themes in Anatolia were literally the heart of the empire, and within decades after Manzikert, they were gone."

Absent the Battle of Manzikert, it is entirely likely that Byzantium would have been better able to resist future Islamic expansion and delayed or thwarted the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

1346. The Battle of Crecy. Another famous battle, though better known to western historians than Mazikert. At Crecy, France, the ultimate supremacy of the English longbow over French crossbows and armored knights is firmly established during this critical battle in the Hundred Years' War. Many consider this battle to also be the beginning of the end of classic chivalry, due to the weapons and tactics employed.

The British, with a force of between 9,000 and 15,000, held the high ground in Northern France, fighting under thier King, Edward III. The French, under their King, Philip IV, had approximately 30,000 men under arms, including a great part of the mounted knight nobility of France and Genoese and French crossbowmen.

The battle was an utter disaster for the French. The range of the English longbows was greater than the crossbows, and when the English came somewhat forward and started annihilating hte crossbowmen with massed arrowstorms, they withdrew. The French knights, thinking the withdrawal cowardly, mowed them down as well. Then charged the English.

French armor could not stop the English arrows from penetrating, however, and their horses were practically unprotected. They and their horses were hit hard during the charge, and then (many now horseless) the knights floundered through the mud trying to get to the longbowmen, and were annihilated en masse.

Much of the nobility of France was killed or wounded, while Edward III, whose war in Frnace was increasingly unpopular back home, found new grounds for support. He would go on to besiege Calais, which would fall to him in a year and be held by the British for nearly 200 years.

1498. Michelangelo is commissioned to carve the Pieta.



1883. Mount Krakatoa begins its final, paroxysmal, eruption.

1939. The first major league baseball game is telecast -- a double header at Ebbets Field between the Brooklyn Dodgers and Cincinnati Reds.

1966. The Battle of Omuguluwombashe commences the Namibian War of Independence. I'm not sure how important this is in the greater historical sense, as my knowledge of Namibia is pretty limited, but I couldn't miss an opportunity to write "Omuguluwombashe".

[Oucho Cinco]

Today in history, nothing of substance for the U.S. happened.

[Amnorix]

August 27

1776. The Battle of Brooklyn Heights, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn or the Battle of Long Island. This was the first major battle of the American Revolution after the issuance of hte Declaration of Independence, and was overwhelmingly a British victory.

Earlier in the year, the British had fled Boston after the Continentals had brought cannons from Fort Ticonderoga to Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston. George Washington, therefore, brought his army to New York, to defend the key juncture between New England and the rest of the colonies. After making some very shaky strategic and tactical decisions, however, and being routed in the first day of battle, the rebels escape a prolonged (and certainly futile) siege by fleeing during the night across the river, helped by an early morning fog which helped conceal the evacuation that had not yet been completed by daybreak. At 7:00 a.m. Washington, the last man out, had saved his 9,000 troops in their entirety.

Though the withdrawal had been ingenius, it didn't disguise either the faulty initial plans that had resulted in the Revolutionary Army's poor situation, nor retrieve the fact that New York had been lost.

1859. What will become the first commercially successful oil well is discovered at Titusville, Pennsylvania.

1939. First flight of the Heinkel HE 178 -- the world's first jet aircraft.

[Amnorix]

August 28

1521. The Ottoman Turks occupy Belgrade.

1867. The US takes possession of the previously unoccupied Midway Atoll, which will come to prominence during WWII.

1898. Caleb Bradham, a North Carolina pharmacist who, like most in that day had a soda fountain, rebrands his soft drink from what was previously known as "Brad's Drink" to "Pepsi-Cola". The inspiration for the name was the combination of the terms pepsin and cola, pepsin being the pepsin enzyme that aids in digestion, much as he believed his cola did.

In 1923 Bradham and his company would declare bankruptcy, largely as a result of fluctuations in the price of sugar. He would return to his pharmacy, while his company would be acquired out of bankruptcy by Craven Holding Company for $35,000. Today, Pepsi has worldwide operations with over 200,000 employees, approximately $44 billion in annual revenues and profits of approximately $6 billion per year.

1961. Motown (short for "Motor" "Town", a nickname for Detroit) Records releases what will be its first hit -- Please Mr. Postman, by the Marvelettes.

1963. Leading his march on Washington for jobs and freedom, Martin Luther King gives his I Have a Dream speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbUtL_0vAJk

2005. Hurricane Katrina, the sixth strongest Atlantic hurricane in recorded history, begins to make landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi. The hurricane and subsequent floods would cause over 1,800 lost lives, over $80 billion in damages and over 7 million gallons of petroleum being spilled.

[Amnorix]

August 29

1756. Frederick the Great attacks Saxony, beginning what is known in Europe as the Seven Years War, and in America sa the French and Indian Wars.

1758. The first American Indian reservation is established, in New Jersey.

1825. Portugal recognizes the independence of Brazil.

1885. Gottlieb Daimler patents the first motorcycle.

1949. The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb.

[Amnorix]

August 30

A surprisingly quiet day, really. I'll keep it short and simple.

1967. Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African-American Justice to the United States Supreme Court. Marshall, after graduating first in his class from Howard University, had almost immediately started arguing civil rights cases. He would win his first case before the Supreme Court at age 32 and immediately thereafter became chief counsel to the NAACP. He would go on to win 29 of the 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, including most notably Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, which reversed the "separate but equal" doctrine that the Supreme Court had approved in the abominable Plessy v. Ferguson decision.

He would serve 24 years on the SCOTUS, compiling a strongly liberal record in support of individual rights. His jurisprudence was not limited to merely criminal law matters. In 1976 he authored an opinion that includes the standard for the challenging "materiality" standard in securities law matters which remains the standard to this day.

Among his law clerks was Elena Kagan, who was recently confirmed as a justice to the SCOTUS herself.

Marshall in 1936, at the beginning of his NAACP career.

[Amnorix]

August 31

1422. King Henry V of England dies of dysentery. The young king, who had ruled for less than 10 years and died at about age 35, had overseen a long string of military successes in the Hundred Years War against France, including the Battle of Agincourt. His untimely death led to the coronation of Henry VI, who was at the time only nine months of age. When he did achieve his manhood, he was an ineffectual ruler. A pious and peaceful man, his lengthy reign was more or less a disaster for England and a boon for France. His reign saw the rise of Joan d'Arc, a string of French victories and, ultimately, the end of the Hundred Years War. His weak rulership led to his downfall, as well as that of his house, Lancaster, and the rise of the House of York.

1803. In his first journal entry for the expedition with James Clark:

Originally Posted by Meriwether Lewis

Left Pittsburgh this day at 11 o'clock with a party of 11 hands 7 of which are soldiers, a pilot and three young men on trial they having proposed to go with me throughout the voyage

1864. The Battle of Jonesboro begins, outside Atlanta. Designed to cut off Confederate supply lines and lure what was left of Hood's army out of Atlanta where it could be destroyed, Union General Tecumseh Sherman's Army moves the bulk of his army which had been imperfectly besieging Atlanta around the city, to destroy certain railroad connections. The siege had been imperfect in that Sherman didn't have sufficient forces to completely invest the city and cut it off from all supply sources. Now, eh resolved to do mroe than just raid Confederate supply lines.

In response, Hood moved a portion of the Confederate troops under General Hardee to block the assault. Hood didn't realize, however, that Sherman had sent nearly his entirely army on the operation, and the Rebel forces were greatly outnumbered. Hardee's attack was easily repulsed. Hood, learning this and fearing a direct assault on Atlanta, removed one of the corps that had been assigned to Hardee and had it return to Atlanta's defenses that night. The consequences would be pivotal. The Union attack of September 1st smashed Hardee's forces, who reeled away bloodied. The Union now straddled two key railroad lines into Atlanta. Hood, his supplies already tenuous, ordered Atlanta abandoned on the night of the 1st, and Sherman occupied the city on the 2nd.

The consequences of the fall of Atlanta can hardly be overstated. As a result of the city's conquest, the re-election chances of Abraham Lincoln, which had been absolutely dismal as a result of the long war and the seeming stalemates of Grant in front of Petersburg and Sherman in front of Atlanta, suddenly soared. Absent Sherman's capture of Atlanta, it is entirely possible that the Democratic candidate, former General McClellan, would have won the election and sued for peace with the Confederacy.

1888. At 12:30 a.m., Mary Ann Nichols, a 43 year old alcoholic prostitute left a pub that she frequented and returned to the boarding house where she was living. She was turned away, however, as she had failed to pay and she indicated with her last words that she would soon return with the money in hand. By 2:30 a.m. she was seen by her flatmate, Nelly Holland, who spoke with her and learned that she had a number of successes and could have paid for her bed, but had unfortuntely bought more alcohol. At about 3:40 a.m. her body was found lying on the ground in front of a gated stable entrance about 150 yards from the London Hospital. Her throat had been slit twice, there was a deep wound in her abdomen and several incisions across the abdomen and right side of her body. The abdominal injuries were made after she was already dead from the slitting of her throat.

Jack the Ripper had struck for the first time.

1907. The St. Petersburg Convention is signed by Russia, England and France, giving rise to the Triple Entente which will fight against the Triple Alliance in WWI.

1939. A small group of Germans led by Alfred Naujocks and wearing Polish uniforms seize the Gleiwitz Radio Station, in Upper Silesia, Germany, and broadcast a short anti-German message. As Naujocks will testify at the Nuremberg trials, he was operating under orders from Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Muller, of the German Gestapo. Germany asserts that Polish forces launched the attack, serving as cause for war.

1997. Princess Diana and her companion die in a car crash in Paris.

[Amnorix]

September 1.

1715. After 72 years of reign, the longest of any monarch in European history, King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, dies.

1870. The Battle of Sedan, between the forces of Prussia and France. The Prussian forces won a decisive victory, including the capture of Emperor Napoleon III. The result effectively decided the war, though fighting would continue for some time yet. The fighting would continue under a provisional government, however, as the Second French Empire collapsed immediately upon Napoleon III's capture, in a bloodless revolution. As a result of the Prussian victory in the war, the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was taken from France and made part of Germany, where it would remain as a bone of contention until it was given back to France following the end of WWI.

1897. The Boston subway opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.

1939. After the staged attack on a German radio station (described yesterday), the German Wehrmacht invades Poland. With overwhelming numerical and equipment advantages, and the impact of its "new" blitzkrieg assault -- Polish defenses quickly crumble.

1939. George Catlett Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army. He brings to the job with him a list of young, promising soldiers whom he intends to elevate as quickly as possible through the ranks, notwithstanding their technically junior status in the hide-bound US Army which has traditionally valued length of service above all other qualifications. Within three years, he will grow the US Army by a factor of 40.

1969. A revolution in Libya brings Muammar al-Gaddafi to power.

[Sofa King]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

September 1.

1715. After 72 years of reign, the longest of any monarch in European history, King Louis XIV of France, the Sun King, dies.

1870. The Battle of Sedan, between the forces of Prussia and France. The Prussian forces won a decisive victory, including the capture of Emperor Napoleon III. The result effectively decided the war, though fighting would continue for some time yet. The fighting would continue under a provisional government, however, as the Second French Empire collapsed immediately upon Napoleon III's capture, in a bloodless revolution. As a result of the Prussian victory in the war, the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was taken from France and made part of Germany, where it would remain as a bone of contention until it was given back to France following the end of WWI.

1897. The Boston subway opens, becoming the first underground rapid transit system in North America.

1939. After the staged attack on a German radio station (described yesterday), the German Wehrmacht invades Poland. With overwhelming numerical and equipment advantages, and the impact of its "new" blitzkrieg assault -- Polish defenses quickly crumble.

1939. George Catlett Marshall becomes Chief of Staff of the United States Army. He brings to the job with him a list of young, promising soldiers whom he intends to elevate as quickly as possible through the ranks, notwithstanding their technically junior status in the hide-bound US Army which has traditionally valued length of service above all other qualifications. Within three years, he will grow the US Army by a factor of 40.

1969. A revolution in Libya brings Muammar al-Gaddafi to power.

Any idea who these young promising soldiers could be? any names? should i already know?

Found this regarding forty-fold on wikipedia... but it doesn't really describe who was on this list...




"Grows military force forty fold
Faced with the necessity of turning an army of former civilians into a force of over eight million soldiers by 1942 (a fortyfold increase within three years), Marshall directed General Leslie McNair to focus efforts on rapidly producing large numbers of soldiers. With the exception of airborne forces, Marshall approved McNair's concept of an abbreviated training schedule for men entering Army land forces training, particularly in regards to basic infantry skills, weapons proficiency, and combat tactics.[9][10] At the time, most U.S. commanders at lower levels had little or no combat experience of any kind; without the input of experienced British or Allied combat officers on the nature of modern warfare and enemy tactics, many of them resorted to formulaic training methods emphasizing static defense and orderly large-scale advances by motorized convoys over improved roads.[11] In consequence, Army forces deploying to Africa suffered serious initial reverses when encountering German armored combat units in Africa at Kasserine Pass and other major battles.[12] Even as late as 1944, U.S. soldiers undergoing stateside training in preparation for deployment against German forces in Europe were not being trained in combat procedures and tactics currently being employed there.[13]"

[Amnorix]

Originally Posted by Sofa King

Any idea who these young promising soldiers could be? any names? should i already know?

Found this regarding forty-fold on wikipedia... but it doesn't really describe who was on this list...

The main one is Dwight Eisenhower, who was finally made a Lt. Col. in 1936 after 16 years as a Major, was given his first star on October 3, 1941, and had never held active commadn above the battallion level. By December of '43 he was given command of Operation Overlord. While Ike had an impressive background, there's no doubt that Marshall reached down into the ranks and elevated some guys far more quickly than would have been the case in the "old" army, pissing off some senior guys in the process.

I would need to check my book on Marshall to find too many other names. I'm pretty sure Clark (commander in Italy and then in Operation Dragoon (Southern France) was one, as was Freydenhall (sp?) who initially commanded in the Tunisian campaign, but was relieved when it turned out that he was a disaster.

Remind me, if I don't post anything further on this, and I"ll check my biography on Marshall.

[Sofa King]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

The main one is Dwight Eisenhower, who was finally made a Lt. Col. in 1936 after 16 years as a Major, was given his first star on October 3, 1941, and had never held active commadn above the battallion level. By December of '43 he was given command of Operation Overlord. While Ike had an impressive background, there's no doubt that Marshall reached down into the ranks and elevated some guys far more quickly than would have been the case in the "old" army, pissing off some senior guys in the process.

I would need to check my book on Marshall to find too many other names. I'm pretty sure Clark (commander in Italy and then in Operation Dragoon (Southern France) was one, as was Freydenhall (sp?) who initially commanded in the Tunisian campaign, but was relieved when it turned out that he was a disaster.

Remind me, if I don't post anything further on this, and I"ll check my biography on Marshall.

I thought he might have meant Dwight (that much was on wikipedia)... but i hadn't considered someone born in 1890, to be young, up and coming 50 years later, but i suppose 50 isn't all that old after all...