July 31

This weekend is looking tricky, so I'll get a bit ahead here.

30 BC. The Battle of Alexandria. Despite mounting desertions, the forces of Mark Antony repulse an attack in Egypt by Octavian (not yet Caesar Augustus) in the Final War of the Roman Republic. Despite the success, his forces continue to desert. Within two weeks he will have committed suicide, and Cleopatra with him, and Octavian will be victorious.

1941. Following Hitler's orders, Reichmarshall Hermann Goering orders SS General Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

I think it is great simply because most of us don't know much if any of that history. I will second Sofa King in stating that this is my favorite ongoing thread and read it whenever I see it on the front page. I appreciate the effort you put in to edumacate some of us dumb shmucks.

Related to a previous post, I was just at a museum recently that referenced a WWII ship called the USS Burnside. Knowing the legacy of Ambrose Burnside, it led me to wonder if there another Burnside who was competent. It doesn't seem like a morale boost to be a sailor on a ship named after Ambrose Burnside.

Many a ship or military base is named after a mediocre-at-best military commander. Fort Hood Texas (John Bell Hood, the mediocre Confederate general who had no concept of doing anything except ATTACK!), and probably the worst -- the USS Bainbridge, named after Commodore Bainbridge, who

1. surrendered a navy ship (USS Retaliation) to a French cruiser without opposition -- the first US Navy ship to ever surrender,

2. made the mistake, when reinstated to another command, of anchoring his ship (USS George Washington) beneath an enemy fort's guns. The Dey of Algiers demanded that he perform as a messenger service and courier the ambassador of Algiers to the Ottomon Court at Constaninople or be blown to smithereens. So he did, and the US Navy had the distinct morale blow of having one of her best ships serve as a courier for one of the Barbary Coast pirates.

3. Ran yet another ship (USS Philadelphia) aground on the Tunisian coast. He surrendered the ship after yet again not fiiring a shot, and then got to watch the ship be floated off teh sandbar at high tide and be captured by the Bey of Tunis. The ship was later fired by the heroic acts of someone who knew WTF they were doing in the US Navy -- Stephen Decatur.

4. Remain imprisoned for nearly three years. After being released, he actually somehow (SOMEHOW!) got another command in teh US Navy. To his credit, he did well in the war of 1812, capturing the smaller HMS Java.

But honest to God! How did he get a second command, much less a fourth?! And they named a ship after him?!?!

or how about Fort Devens, named after jurist and political appointee General Charles Devens (of Massachusetts, btw) whose utter incompetency (and possibly drunkeness) was largely responsible for having the entire Union right flank rolled up at Chancellorsville and -- had there been more hours of daylight left -- may well have resulted in the loss of the entire Army of the Potomac and the Civil War.

Nothing of great interest happened.

August 1

527. Justinian the Great, whom I prefer to call Justinian the Greatly Overrated, becomes the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire. Dominated by his wife, reputedly a former courtesan, Justinian will ride the laurels of his great general, Belisarius, to a number of military victories only to treat him shamefully at the end of his lengthy career. Inarguably, however, Justinian's reign was both lengthy (40 years) and quite successful. His most lasting accomplishment may have been a complete rewrite of the old Roman Law, which was passed back to Italy and the rest of Western Europe after Belisarius brought much of Italy to heel. It remains influential to this day.

1798. The Battle of the Nile, between British and French fleets battling in Egypt during the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was very unusual for this time period for being a night action. British Rear Admiral Horatio Nelson further cements his fame with a victory over the French fleet.

1834. Slavery becomes illegal within the British Empire, at least technically. In reality, slaves under six years of age were immediately emancipated, and all those over six became "apprentices", really indentured servants who would continue to serve their former masters for a length of time dependent on which of three classifications they belonged to. Those involved in manufacturing or agriculture continued to serve until 1840. All others were fully released as of August 1, 1838. 20 million pounds sterling were set aside to pay the owners for the release of their slaves. The law did not, however, apply to territories controlled by the
East India Company, or the Islands of Ceylon or Saint Helena.

1902. The US buys the rights to the Panama Canal from FRance, which had tried but failed to build it using private enterprise.

1941. The first Jeep is produced.

1944. Anne Frank makes the last entry in her diary. She and her family, which has been in hiding from Jew-persecuting Nazis for over two years, will be arrested by the Nazis three days later after being betrayed, after which she is deported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where she and her sister will both die of Typhus in March, 1945.


1944. The Warsaw Uprising begins against the Nazi occupation forces in Poland. Designed to coincide and lend assistance to advancing Soviet forces, the Polish underground is betrayed when the Soviets stop their advance, leaving the Polish to struggle for 63 days against their brutal Nazi overlords. Eventually, the Polish surrender, but not before many leaders and soldiers in what would have been the independent state of Poland are captured or killed by the Nazis, leaving the Soviet Union with a freer hand to install its own puppet government after the war. Despite Soviet denials, there can be little doubt of their complicity, as Soviet forces were literally only a few miles away the entire time, on the far side of the Vistula River. Approximately 16,000 resistance fighters are killed, 6,000 more badly wounded, and 150-200 thousand civilians killed as the Nazis mercilessly suppress the rebellion. As a result of the damage done during the uprising (the Nazis systematically leveled entire city blocks), in combination with the damage done to Warsaw during prior battles, approximately 85% of the city is in ruins by the time Soviet "liberation" forces arrive.

1957. the US and Canada form the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

And NORAD always brings one thing in particular to mind for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHWjlCaIrQo&feature=related

August 2

338 BC. A Macedonian Army under Philip II defeats the combined forces of Athens and Thebes, securing Macedonian hegemony over Greece and the Aegean and laying one of the final pieces in the foundation on which his son, Alexander the Great, will build his empire when Philip is assassinated two years later.

216 BC. The Battle of Cannae. In Apulia (Southeastern) Italy, a Carthaginian army under the command of Hannibal defeats a far superior in numbers Roman Army.

Including allied forces and attachments, the estimated strength of this army was an incredible 90,000 men, which for those times in ancient Europe was indeed massive. With this latest defeat, Rome had lost, in three campaigns by Hannibal over 20 months, fully 20% of its entire population over 17 years of age.

1790. The first US census is conducted.

1869. Japan's caste system -- samurai, farmers, merchants, artisans -- is abolished as part of the Meiji reforms.

1939. Physicist Albert Einstein signs a letter primarily written by physicist Leo Szilard and addressed to President Franklin Roosevelt urging him to begin research into the weapon potential of atomic power.

1943. The Japanese destroyer Amagiri rams and sinks US PT Boat 109. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future President, saves all but two of her crew.

1964. The Gulf of Tonkin incident. Allegedly, at least, on this date three North Vietnamese gunboats opened fire on the USS destroyer Maddox, which had been sailing on patrol. The Maddox fired 280 3 and 5 inch shells, and four fighter/bomber planes supported. One plane was damaged, one 14.5mm round hit the destroyer, and all 3 North Vietnamese torpedo boats were damaged. Two days later, again allegedly, was a naval battle between another US Destroyer, the Turner Joy, and Vietnamese torpedo boats. The result was the Tonkin Gulf resolution, which Congress passed giving President Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was endangered by "Communist aggression." President Johnson used this as his legal justification for fully committing the US into what became known as the Vietnam War.

In retrospect, the August 4th attack is greatly suspect, though the August 2 attack is admitted. One of the US pilots flying over the August 4th "battle", James Stockdale, the squadron commander said

Stockdale at one point recounts seeing Turner Joy pointing her guns at the Maddox.Stockdale said his superiors ordered him to keep quiet about this. After he was captured, this knowledge became a heavy burden. He later said he was concerned that his captors would eventually force him to reveal what he knew about the second incident.

In 1995, retired Vietnamese Defense Minister Vo Nguyen Giap, meeting with former Secretary of Defense McNamara, categorically denied that Vietnamese gunboats had attacked American destroyers on August 4, while admitting to the attack on August 2.

Nothing of great interest happened.

errr...do what you like, I don't much care, but at least try to be amusing or clever. So far your posts belong more in the Epic Fail thread than here.

Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back this day in 1876 by Jack McCall.


James Butler Hickok (May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876), better known as Wild Bill Hickok, was a figure in the American Old West. His skills as a gunfighter and scout, along with his reputation as a lawman, provided the basis for his fame, although some of his exploits are fictionalized. His nickname of Wild Bill has inspired similar nicknames for men known for their daring in various fields.

Hickok came to the West as a stagecoach driver, then became a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and gained publicity after the war as a scout, marksman, and professional gambler. Between his law-enforcement duties and gambling, which easily overlapped, Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts, and was ultimately killed while playing poker in a Dakota Territory saloon.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok

Hickok always sat facing the door. This night, there were two doors and he was only able to face one of them. The killer came up behind him from the door he couldn't see.

He tried getting someone to switch him spots before he even sat down, but the other's wouldnt...

Basically you are picking a day in history that has little historic value and expect big things?

I'm more inclined to say your whole concept falls into the epic fail category. My bet is that posted your weak thread just to start an arguement. Have one with yourself. I think you are the only one that cares.