History Thread...

[CMRivdogs]

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The Albemarle Independent Company will send him the same message in 3 days. All over Virginia, as news of Dunmore’s seizure of the powder arrives, the independent militia companies show themselves ready to march on the provincial capital at Williamsburg to force him to return it.

 

[CMRivdogs]

April 28

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-28

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Three weeks into a journey from Tahiti to the West Indies, the HMS Bounty is seized in a mutiny led by Fletcher Christian, the master’s mate. Captain William Bligh and 18 of his loyal supporters were set adrift in a small, open boat, and the Bounty set course for Tubuai south of Tahiti.

On April 28, near the island of Tonga, Christian and 25 petty officers and seamen seized the ship. Bligh, who eventually would fall prey to a total of three mutinies in his career, was an oppressive commander and insulted those under him. By setting him adrift in an overcrowded 23-foot-long boat in the middle of the Pacific, Christian and his conspirators had apparently handed him a death sentence. By remarkable seamanship, however, Bligh and his men reached Timor in the East Indies on June 14, 1789, after a voyage of about 3,600 miles. Bligh returned to England and soon sailed again to Tahiti, from where he successfully transported breadfruit trees to the West Indies.

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1862

Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier.

The capture of this vital southern city was a huge blow to the Confederacy. Southern military strategists planned for a Union attack down the Mississippi, not from the Gulf of Mexico. In early 1862, the Confederates concentrated their forces in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee to stave off the Yankee invasion. Many of these troops fought at Shiloh in Tennessee on April 6 and 7. Eight Rebel gunboats were dispatched up the great river to stop a Union flotilla above Memphis, leaving only 3,000 militia, two uncompleted ironclads, and a few steamboats to defend New Orleans. The most imposing obstacles for the Union were two forts, Jackson and St. Phillip. In the middle of the night of April 24, Admiral David Farragut led a fleet of 24 gunboats, 19 mortar boats and 15,000 soldiers in a daring run past the forts.

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On April 28, 1967, boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the U.S. Army and is immediately stripped of his heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cited religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 14, 1942, the future three-time world champ changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. He scored a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome and made his professional boxing debut against Tunney Hunsaker on October 29, 1960, winning the bout in six rounds. On February 25, 1964, he defeated the heavily favored bruiser Sonny Liston in six rounds to become heavyweight champ.

 

[CMRivdogs]

April 29

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-29

 

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On April 29, 2004, the World War II Memorial opens in Washington, D.C. to thousands of visitors, providing overdue recognition for the 16 million U.S. men and women who served in the war. The memorial is located on 7.4 acres on the former site of the Rainbow Pool at the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The Capitol dome is seen to the east, and Arlington Cemetery is just across the Potomac River to the west.

 

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On April 29, 1854, Lincoln University becomes the nation’s first historically Black degree-granting institution of higher education.

Located in Pennsylvania and originally founded as the Ashmun Institute, the university was renamed in 1866 in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, revered among African Americans for his 1863 decree to emancipate the nation’s millions of enslaved people. Founder John Miller Dickey, who was white, had long been involved in the ministry, and with the help of his wife Sarah Emlen Cressen, provided philanthropic services to African Americans in the community. Dickey made efforts to enroll a freedman, James Amos, into other schools to prepare him for ministry, but when no one would admit him due to his race, Dickey trained Amos himself.

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On April 29, 2004, the last Oldsmobile comes off the assembly line at the Lansing Car Assembly plant in Michigan, signaling the end of the 106-year-old automotive brand, America’s oldest. Factory workers signed the last Oldsmobile, an Alero sedan, before the vehicle was moved to Lansing’s R.E. Olds Transportation Museum, where it went on display. The last 500 Aleros ever manufactured featured “Final 500″ emblems and were painted dark metallic cherry red.

 

[CMRivdogs]

April 30

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/april-30

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On April 30, 1945, holed up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. Soon after, Germany unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces, ending Hitler’s dreams of a “1,000-year” Reich.

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On April 30, 1789, George Washington is sworn in as the first American president and delivers the first inaugural speech at Federal Hall in New York City. Elements of the ceremony set tradition; presidential inaugurations have deviated little in the two centuries since Washington’s inauguration.

Observers noted that Washington appeared as if he would have preferred facing cannon and musket fire to taking the political helm of the country. He fidgeted, with his hand in one pocket, and spoke in a low, sometimes inaudible voice while he reiterated the mixed emotions of anxiety and honor he felt in assuming the role of president. For the most part, his address consisted of generalities, but he directly addressed the need for a strong Constitution and Bill of Rights and frequently emphasized the public good. He told the House of Representatives that he declined to be paid beyond such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. In deference to the power of Congress, Washington promised to give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good.

After delivering his address, Washington walked up Broadway with a group of legislators and local political leaders to pray at St. Paul’s Chapel. Later, he made the humble and astute observation that his presidency, and the nation itself, was an experiment.

 

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On April 30, 1803, representatives of the United States and Napoleonic France complete negotiationsfor the Louisiana Purchase, a massive land sale that doubles the size of the young American republic. What was known as Louisiana Territory comprised most of modern-day United States between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, with the exceptions of Texas, parts of New Mexico, and other pockets of land already controlled by the United States. A formal treaty for the Louisiana Purchase, antedated to April 30, was signed two days later.

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The South Vietnamese stronghold of Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) falls to People's Army of Vietnam and the Viet Cong on April 30, 1975. The South Vietnamese forces had collapsed under the rapid advancement of the North Vietnamese. The most recent fighting had begun in December 1974, when the North Vietnamese had launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located due north of Saigon along the Cambodian border, overrunning the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975. Despite previous presidential promises to provide aid in such a scenario, the United States did nothing. By this time, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon’s earlier promises to rescue Saigon from communist takeover.

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On April 30, 1993, four years after publishing a proposal for “an idea of linked information systems,” computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee releases the source code for the world’s first web browser and editor. Originally called Mesh, the browser that he dubbed WorldWideWeb becomes the first royalty-free, easy-to-use means of browsing the emerging information network that developed into the internet as we know it today.

 

[CMRivdogs]

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John Adams to Abigail Adams

Hartford. April 30th. 1775

New York has appointed an ample Representation in our Congress, and have appointed a provincial Congress. The People of the City, have siezed the City Arms and Ammunition, out of the Hands of the Mayor who is a Creature of the Governor. Lord North will be certainly disappointed, in his Expectation of seducing New York. The Tories there, durst not shew their Heads.

The Jerseys are arroused, and greatly assist the Friends of Liberty in New York.

North Carolina has done bravely, chosen the old Delegates in Provincial Congress, and then confirmed the Choice in General Assembly, in Opposition to all that Governor Martin could do.

The Assembly of this Colony is now sitting at Hartford. We are treated with great Tenderness, Sympathy, Friendship and Respect. Every Thing is doing by this Colony, that can be done by Men—both for N. York and Boston.

Keep your Spirits composed and calm, and dont suffer your self to be disturbed, by idle Reports, and frivolous Alarms. We shall see better Times yet. Lord North is ensuring us success.—I am wounded to the Heart, with the News this Moment told me of J. Quincys Death.1

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-01-02-0125

[CMRivdogs]

From Wikipedia

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The Quebec Act 1774 (14 Geo. 3. c. 83) (French: Acte de Québec de 1774) was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain which set procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. One of the principal components of the act was the expansion of the province's territory to take over part of the Indian Reserve, including much of what is now southern Ontario, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, and parts of Minnesota.

 

Edited May 1 by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

May 2

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-2

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On May 2, 1918, General Motors Corporation (GM), which will become the world’s largest automotive firm, acquires Chevrolet Motor Company.

GM had been founded a decade earlier by William C. “Billy” Durant, a former carriage maker from Flint, Michigan, whose Durant-Dort Carriage Company had taken control of the ailing Buick Motor Company. On September 16, 1908, Durant incorporated Buick into a new entity, General Motors, which by the end of that decade had welcomed other leading auto manufacturers–including Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland–into its fold. In 1910, with GM struggling financially, stockholders blamed Durant’s aggressive expansionism and forced him out of the company he founded. In November 1911, he launched Chevrolet Motor Company, named for his partner, the Swiss race car driver Louis Chevrolet.

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After nearly five decades as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), J. Edgar Hooverdies, leaving the powerful government agency without the administrator who had been largely responsible for its existence and shape.

Educated as a lawyer and a librarian, Hoover joined the Department of Justice in 1917 and within two years had become special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Deeply anti-radical in his ideology, Hoover came to the forefront of federal law enforcement during the Red Scare of 1919 to 1920. The former librarian set up a card index system listing every radical leader, organization, and publication in the United States and by 1921 had amassed some 450,000 files. More than 10,000 suspected communists were also arrested during this period, but the vast majority of these people were briefly questioned and then released. Although the attorney general was criticized for abusing his authority during the Palmer Raids, Hoover emerged unscathed, and on May 10, 1924, he was appointed acting director of the Bureau of Investigation, a branch of the Justice Department established in 1909.

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Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. The notorious, 54-year-old leader of Al Qaeda, the terrorist network of Islamic extremists, had been the target of a nearly decade-long international manhunt.

The raid began around 1 a.m. local time (4 p.m. EST on May 1, 2011 in the United States), when 23 U.S. Navy SEALs in two Black Hawk helicopters descended on the compound in Abbottabad, a tourist and military center north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. One of the helicopters crash-landed into the compound but no one aboard was hurt.

During the raid, which lasted approximately 40 minutes, five people, including bin Laden and one of his adult sons, were killed by U.S. gunfire. No Americans were injured in the assault. Afterward, bin Laden’s body was flown by helicopter to Afghanistan for official identification, then buried at an undisclosed location in the Arabian Sea less than 24 hours after his death, in accordance with Islamic practice.

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Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) succumbs to illness exacerbated by alcoholism and passes away at age 48. McCarthy had been a key figure in the anticommunist hysteria popularly known as the “Red Scare” that engulfed the United States in the years following World War II.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 3

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-3

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The Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, meeting in closed session, begin their hearings into the dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur by President Harry S. Truman. The hearings served as a sounding board for MacArthur and his extremist views on how the Cold Warshould be fought.

General MacArthur served as commander of U.S. forces during the Korean War until 1951. In late 1950 he made a serious strategic blunder when he dismissed warnings that the People’s Republic of China would enter the conflict on the side of its communist ally, North Korea. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops smashed into the American lines in November 1950, driving the U.S. troops back with heavy losses.

The hearings ended after seven weeks, with no definite conclusions reached about MacArthur’s dismissal. However, the general’s extremist stance and intemperate statements concerning the need for an expanded conflict against communism during the hearings soon eroded his popularity with the American public. MacArthur attempted to garner the Republican presidential nomination in 1952, but lost to the more moderate campaign of another famed military leader, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

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On May 3, 1942, during World War II, the first modern naval engagement in history, the Battle of the Coral Sea, begins. A Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan’s defensive perimeter.

The United States, having broken Japan’s secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada. Four days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 American warplanes destroyed. This confrontation, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was the American carrier Lexington; “the Blue Ghost” (so-called because it was not camouflaged like other carriers) suffered extensive aerial damage and was scuttled by destroyer torpedoes. Two hundred sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese aerial bombardment.

Although Japan would go on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory was a Pyrrhic one: The cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby, Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.

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1986

Willie Shoemaker, at 54, defies 18:1 odds to become the oldest jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. It's a Run for the Roses redemption after his infamous 1957 blunder of celebrating victory before crossing the finish line.

 

[CMRivdogs]

Dunmore’s reminder in his order of the colony’s vulnerability to slave uprising or Indian attack is taken by a number of Patriots as a threat to arm Virginia’s nonwhite population if the colonists continue to resist the Crown.
 

Wealthy planter and Patriot member of the House of Burgesses Carter Braxton advises Henry and his men to remain outside town, and rides into Williamsburg himself to negotiate with Lord Dunmore.

[CMRivdogs]

May 4

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-4

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On May 4, 1970, in Kent, Ohio, 28 National Guardsmen fire their weapons at a group of anti-war demonstrators on the Kent State University campus, killing four students and wounding nine. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Vietnam, and further galvanized the anti-war movement.

Two days earlier, on May 2, National Guard troops were called to Kent to suppress students rioting in protest of the Vietnam War and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. The next day, scattered protests were dispersed by tear gas, and on May 4 class resumed at Kent State University. By noon that day, despite a ban on rallies, some 2,000 people had assembled on the campus. National Guard troops arrived and ordered the crowd to disperse, fired tear gas, and advanced against the students with bayonets fixed on their rifles. Some of the protesters, refusing to yield, responded by throwing rocks and verbally taunting the troops.

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On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island, the colony founded by the most radical religious dissenters from the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony, becomes the first North American colony to renounce its allegiance to King George III. Ironically, Rhode Island would be the last state to ratify the new American Constitution more than 14 years later on May 29, 1790.

Rhode Island served as a mercantile center of the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century. West Indian molasses became rum in Rhode Island distilleries, which was then traded on the West African coast for enslaved workers. After taking their human cargo across the notorious middle passage from Africa across the Atlantic to the Caribbean islands, Rhode Island merchants would then sell those who survived the boats’ wretched conditions and rough ocean crossing to West Indian plantation owners for use as enslaved workers in exchange for a fresh shipment of molasses.

The desire to protect this lucrative triangle trade led Rhode Islanders to bristle at British attempts to tighten their control over their colonies’ commerce, beginning with the Sugar Act of 1764, which tightened trade regulations and raised the duty on molasses. Two major incidents involving Rhode Islanders took place during the ensuing colonial protests of British regulation in the late 1760s and early 1770s. On June 10, 1768, British customs officials confiscated John Hancock’s sloop Libertybecause it had previously been used to smuggle Madeira wine, inciting a riot in the streets of Boston. Four years later, near Providence, the British customs boat Gaspee ran aground, and Rhode Islanders, angered by continued British attempts to tax them in ways they perceived as unfair, boarded and burned it, wounding the ship’s captain.

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A ceremony on May 4, 1905 marks the official beginning of the U.S. acquisition of the Panama Canal. After the French had failed in completing the canal, this second effort will succeed in bridging the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, dramatically altering world trade as well as the physical and geopolitical landscape of Central America.

For decades before it was attempted, merchants and engineers fixated on the idea of creating a passage through Central America for ocean-going vessels, sparing them thousands of nautical miles and the dangerous trip around Cape Horn. A French company was the first to attempt building such a canal, but the results were disastrous: roughly 20,000 workers perished due to accidents and tropical diseases, and the company collapsed without coming close to completing the canal.

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On May 4, 1966, San Francisco Giants outfielder Willie Mays hits his 512th career home run to break Mel Ott’s National League record for home runs. Mays would finish his career with 660 home runs, good for third on the all-time list at the time of his retirement.

 

Edited Sunday at 11:28 AM by CMRivdogs

[smr-nj]

Because I am truly older than dirt, I have a very clear remembrance of the day of the Kent State killings. I was in high school, and knew more than a few of those young men who in a year or two (if they didn’t get into college and get a deferment) would be drafted. They were in dread.

The protests in the nation were ramping up, and were,  in large part, organized and attended by the 18-25 year olds.

The absolute horror of seeing national guard members open fire and just shoot into a crowd of unarmed students and/or protestors (not all of them are protesters, a lot of of them were just students walking across campus to their next class) - it took your breath away and felt like a stomach punch.

 It still makes me very queasy… and for sure, I am feeling like we have more of this coming, and I feel like there will be even less hesitation for law enforcement to fire into crowds. I fear for all of us.

[Screwball]

A neighbor and a buddy of mine were at Kent State 55 years ago today. One was a student and the other was in the National Guard. I missed the draft by one year. One year older and I would have been gone as by birthday came out number 8. Kids my age watched many of our buddies go to Nam. Many didn't come home, and many more didn't come home the same. Some suffer to this day the hell they experienced in that stupid war. **** war and the warmongering chicken hawks who profit from the killing machine.

 

Edited Sunday at 03:49 PM by Screwball

[CMRivdogs]

I was in the last Lottery class, my number was something like 185.

Only lottery I ever won

[chasfh]

21 hours ago, smr-nj said:

Because I am truly older than dirt, I have a very clear remembrance of the day of the Kent State killings. I was in high school, and knew more than a few of those young men who in a year or two (if they didn’t get into college and get a deferment) would be drafted. They were in dread.

It wasn’t just them. I was only in grade school, but I was scared ****ing ****less I would be drafted to go to Vietnam when I turned 18 and killed there. I remember I would spend entire days ruminating on it and I would even cry while contemplating it. The other kids had no idea what I was on about (but then, I was a special ed kid, so they already didn’t know what I was on about). I cannot adequately express the wave of relief I felt when I learned the draft was going to end and Vietnam was winding down. I could see the sun shining and the birds singling and the fly balls flying again. I felt like I myself had won some cosmic lottery.

[oblong]

My friends and I were turning 18 when the first gulf war broke out and we had thoughts they'd reinstitute the draft.

 

[gehringer_2]

22 hours ago, smr-nj said:

The absolute horror of seeing national guard members open fire and just shoot into a crowd of unarmed students and/or protestors (not all of them are protesters, a lot of of them were just students walking across campus to their next class) - it took your breath away and felt like a stomach punch.

 It still makes me very queasy… and for sure, I am feeling like we have more of this coming, and I feel like there will be even less hesitation for law enforcement to fire into crowds. I fear for all of us.

The thing I remember about it was that that that I had no sense of surprise that Americans boys in uni's would end up shooting other American kids with signs. We understood our society considered our lives to be disposable in that period no matter which 'side' we were on.

Edited Monday at 02:18 PM by gehringer_2

[oblong]

On May 5, 1961 Alan Shepard lifted off on Freedom 7 becoming the first American in space (or as NASA called him in the movie The Right Stuff, the first free man in space).  It was only a 15 minute suborbital flight but he still went into "space" as defined.  

Shepard wanted to fly another mercury mission after Gordon Cooper's flight but was over ruled.  He was set to fly the first gemini mission but was grounded with ear issues.  He stuck around and finally was cleared to fly and was originally assigned to Apollo 13 but lack of training moved that to Apollo 14 so Al got to walk on the moon, and golf, after all.

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 5

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-5/allies-end-occupation-of-west-germany

On May 5, 1961, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
 

 

On May 5, 1904, 37-year-old Cy Young pitches the first perfect game in modern Major League Baseball history as the Boston Americans defeat the Philadelphia Athletics, 3-0. Young strikes out eight of the 27 batters he faces and benefits from excellent defense in a game that is completed in only 83 minutes. "Unparalleled feat,” a newspaper calls the achievement. A perfect game is achieved when a pitcher retires all the batters he faces in order, with no one reaching base.

Two other pitchers—Lee Richmond and John Ward—recorded perfect games in 1880, but the rules then were significantly different from modern baseball rules, which were established in 1893. Before the modern rules, it took eight balls to walk a batter and the distance from the pitcher's mound to home plate was 45 feet. (The distance is 60 feet, 6 inches today.)

 

 

1955 The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) becomes a sovereign state when the United States, France and Great Britain end their military occupation, which had begun in 1945. With this action, West Germany was given the right to rearm and become a full-fledged member of the western alliance against the Soviet Union.

 

 

[CMRivdogs]

May 6

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-6
 

Happy 80th Birth Anniversary to Bob Seger

 

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The airship Hindenburg, the largest dirigible ever built and the pride of Nazi Germany, bursts into flames upon touching its mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing 36 passengers and crew-members, on May 6, 1937.

On May 3, 1937, the Hindenburg left Frankfurt, Germany, for a journey across the Atlantic to Lakehurst’s Navy Air Base. Stretching 804 feet from stern to bow, it carried 36 passengers and crew of 61. While attempting to moor at Lakehurst, the airship suddenly burst into flames, probably after a spark ignited its hydrogen core. Rapidly falling 200 feet to the ground, the hull of the airship incinerated within seconds. Thirteen passengers, 22 crewmen, and 1 civilian member of the ground crew lost their lives, and most of the survivors suffered substantial injuries.

Radio announcer Herb Morrison, who came to Lakehurst to record a routine voice-over for an NBC newsreel, immortalized the Hindenburg disaster in a famous on-the-scene description in which he emotionally declared, “Oh, the humanity!” The recording of Morrison’s commentary was immediately flown to New York, where it was aired as part of America’s first coast-to-coast radio news broadcast

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On May 6, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs created under the auspices of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which Roosevelt had signed the month before. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA) and other federal assistance programs put unemployed Americans to work in return for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone.

While FDR believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for doling out welfare to otherwise able workers. So, in return for monetary aid, WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters—such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C.—and built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mt. Hood.

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In a May 6, 1994 ceremony presided over by England’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterrand, a rail tunnel under the English Channel is officially opened, connecting Britain and the European mainland for the first time since the Ice Age.

The Channel Tunnel, or “Chunnel,” connects Folkestone, England, with Coquelles, France, 31 miles away. The Chunnel cut travel time between England and France to a swift 35 minutes and eventually between London and Paris to two-and-a-half hours.

As the world’s longest undersea tunnel, the Chunnel runs under water for 23 miles, with an average depth of 150 feet below the seabed. Each day, about 30,000 people, 6,000 cars and 3,500 trucks journey through the Chunnel on passenger, shuttle and freight trains.

 

[oblong]

Surprise... I got one space related but its a good one.

Today in 1968 we almost lost one of our most celebreated astronauts about a year before he made history.

To simulate flying the lunar module, NASA had arranged to build Lunar Lander Research Vehicles (LLRV) and Lunar Lander Test Vehicles (LLTV).  These vehicles used a turbofan to simulate the moon's 1/6 gravity so that the astronauts could learn how to navigate the controls when trying to land.

on May 6, 1968 Neil Armstrong was flying the LLRV when a malfunction caused it to go haywire and at 200 feet Neil had to eject.  He was about a half second from death.  And in a vehicle like that which can turn many ways ejection could have been fatal.   The video below shows the crash... and it's slowed down a little bit.  In real time it looks scarier.  He got a busted lip and went back to the office.  This was the third time he almost died when flying a space related task. (He flew combat missions in Korea so who knows how many times that happened to him then).  

 

 

[smr-nj]

Never heard about this! Wow 😮 

[CMRivdogs]

May 7

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-7

 

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1960 Leonid Brezhnev, one of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s most trusted proteges, is selected as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet—the Soviet equivalent to the presidency. This was another important step in Brezhnev’s rise to power in Russia, a rise that he later capped by taking control of the Soviet Union in 1964.

In 1964, Khrushchev was removed from power and Brezhnev was named new first secretary. Brezhnev held that post for 18 years until his death in 1982. His era was marked by a certain blandness of rule, a much-needed stability in Soviet ruling circles, a sometimes harsh repression of the Soviet people, and a hard-line attitude toward relations with the United States.

 

 

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On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain.

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On May 7, 1945, the German High Command, in the person of General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northeastern France.

At first, General Jodl hoped to limit the terms of German surrender to only those forces still fighting the Western Allies. But General Dwight Eisenhower demanded complete surrender of all German forces, those fighting in the East as well as in the West. If this demand was not met, Eisenhower was prepared to seal off the Western front, preventing Germans from fleeing to the West in order to surrender, thereby leaving them in the hands of the enveloping Soviet forces. Jodl radioed Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, Hitler’s successor, with the terms. Donitz ordered him to sign. So with Russian General Ivan Susloparov and French General Francois Sevez signing as witnesses, and General Walter Bedell Smith, Ike’s chief of staff, signing for the Allied Expeditionary Force, Germany was—at least on paper—defeated. Fighting would still go on in the East for almost another day. But the war in the West was over.

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Pontiac’s Rebellion begins when a confederacy of Native warriors under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacks the British force at Detroit. After failing to take the fort in their initial assault, Pontiac’s forces, made up of Ottawas and reinforced by Wyandots, Ojibwas and Potawatamis, initiated a siege that would stretch into months.

As the French and Indian Wars came to an end in the early 1760s, tribes living in former French territory found the new British authorities to be far less conciliatory than their predecessors. In 1762, Pontiac enlisted support from practically every tribe from Lake Superior to the lower Mississippi for a joint campaign to expel the British from the formerly French-occupied lands. According to Pontiac’s plan, each tribe would seize the nearest fort and then join forces to wipe out the undefended settlements.

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On May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven’s ninth and final symphony debuts at Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor. Having lost his hearing years earlier, the celebrated composer nonetheless “conducts” the first performance of his Ninth Symphony, now widely considered to be one of the greatest pieces of music ever written.

 

[CMRivdogs]

‪Revolutionary War 250‬ ‪@revwar250.bsky.social‬

 

“I could for myself wish to see your Friends Washington and [Charles] L[ee] at the Head of it and yet dare not propose it tho’ I have it in Contemplation.

“I hope that matter will be Considered with more propriety in your Body [the Continental Congress] than ours [the Massachusetts provincial congress]. If you Establish a Continental army of which this will be only a part, you will place the direction as you please.”

[CMRivdogs]

This is an interesting take, true and some of it holds today...

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“There is hardly any probability of the people of the Country receiving for truth any thing that combats with their prejudices; they are possessed with the notion that Great Britain means to enslave them. But this may only be thrown out to justify their rebellion.

“There is no doubt that a plan of resistance has been long concerted, and that these people mean to try to be independant of Great Britain: and they are much instigated to the measures they take, by the letters they receive from England.

“We have no great opinion of the bravery of these people, yet their enthusiasm will supply the place of courage, and their Jewish obstinacy of dispoition, will make them endure severe calamities, before they will submit.

“The face of this Country has great advantage for defence; all along the road are woods, hills, and enclosures of stone walls, so that an Army might be much harrassed on their march,

“but particularly convoys of Provision, by a people who are all Enemys, and in Arms, and who will never appear in the fair field before regular Troops.”

 

[oblong]

1 hour ago, CMRivdogs said:

May 7

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/may-7

 

 

 

There's a park downriver that borders Ecorse and Wyandotte called Council Point Park.  THis is where the meeting between Pontiac and the leaders of the other tribes mentioned took place.  The meeting decided to attack the British and get them out of Detroit.

 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/KnqsLDMuDobdTBdC7