History Thread...

[romad1]

11 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

June 26

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-26

 

The Berlin Airlift is a very appealing historical marker for US Air Force and stands in contrast to the 'knights of the sky' ethos of the fighter community.  It involved crews working their asses off for an extended period to do a difficult and literally dirty job (coal), for a peaceful purpose that benefitted the peace over conflict.  

 

[CMRivdogs]

June 27

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/june-27

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On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forcesto South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam.

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On June 27, 1941, British cryptologists help break the secret code used by the German army to direct its strategic military operations on the Eastern front in the Soviet Union.

British and Polish experts had already broken many of the Enigma codes for the Western front. Enigma was the Germans’ most sophisticated coding machine, necessary to secretly transmit information. The Enigma machine, invented in 1918 by Arthur Scherbius looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes. The German army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong.

Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing developed a machine designed to decipher Enigma codes. Turing's prototype "bombe" unit, named Victory, was first installed in the spring of 1940.

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On June 27, 1864, Colorado Governor John Evans issues a proclamation warning that all peaceful Native Americans in the region must report to the or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the Sand Creek Massacre.

Evans’ offer of sanctuary was at best halfhearted. His primary goal in 1864 was to eliminate all Native American activity in eastern Colorado Territory, an accomplishment he hoped would increase his popularity and eventually win him a U.S. Senate seat. Immediately after ordering the local Native Americans to the reservation, Evans issued a second proclamation that invited white settlers to indiscriminately “kill and destroy all…hostile Indians.” At the same time, Evans began creating a temporary 100-day militia force to wage war on the Native Americans. He placed the new regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington, another ambitious man who hoped to gain high political office by fighting Native Americans.

 

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

June 28

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

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Sometime after midnight on June 28, 1969, in what is now regarded by many as history’s first major protest on behalf of equal rights for LGBTQ people, a police raid of the Stonewall Inn—a popular gay club located on New York City's Christopher Street—turns violent as patrons and local sympathizers begin rioting against the authorities.

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August.

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1965..

In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces in Vietnam, 3,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade—in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese airborne unit—assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, 20 miles northeast of Saigon.

The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contract with the enemy. One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded. The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnsonadministration policy on the role of U.S. troops.

 

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1972 President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam.

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On June 28, 1836, James Madison, drafter of the Constitution, recorder of the Constitutional Convention, author of the “Federalist Papers” and fourth president of the United States, dies on his tobacco plantation in Virginia.

Madison is best remembered for his critical role in the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he presented the Virginia Plan to the assembled delegates in Philadelphia and oversaw the difficult process of negotiation and compromise that led to the drafting of the final Constitution. Madison’s published “Notes on the Convention” are considered the most detailed and accurate account of what occurred in the closed-session debates. (Madison forbade the publishing of his notes until all the participants were deceased.) After the Constitution was submitted to the people for ratification, Madison collaborated with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton on “The Federalist Papers,” a series of pamphlets that argued for the acceptance of the new government. Madison penned the most famous of the pamphlets, “Federalist No. 10,” which made an incisive argument for the ability of a large federation to preserve individual rights.

 

[CMRivdogs]

In the 1920s and ‘30s the Mexican League attracts fans to see the many Negro League and Cuban stars who are banned from playing in the U.S. major leagues. Post-WWII, businessman Jorge Pasquel lures 22 major leaguers to play south of the border in a brief U.S.-Mexican “war.” 2/3

Since 1955 the Mexican League has been affiliated with Major League Baseball as an independent minor league. It now consists of 20 teams split into north and south divisions. 3/3

[CMRivdogs]

June 29

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

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On June 29, 1995, the American space shuttle to form the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

This historic moment of cooperation between former rival space programs was also the 100th human space mission in American history. At the time, Daniel Goldin, chief of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), called it the beginning of “a new era of friendship and cooperation” between the U.S. and Russia. With millions of viewers watching on television, Atlantis blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in eastern Florida on June 27, 1995.

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2007 Apple releases the first iPhone, revolutionizing the mobile phone industry and transforming human communication with its sleek design and pioneering touch interface that allowed users to pinch, zoom and swipe.

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The Globe Theatre, where most of Shakespeare’s plays debuted, burns down on June 29, 1613.

The Globe was built by Shakespeare’s acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in 1599 from the timbers of London’s very first permanent theater, Burbage’s Theater, built in 1576. Before James Burbage built his theater, plays and dramatic performances were ad hoc affairs, performed on street corners and in the yards of inns. However, the Common Council of London, in 1574, started licensing theatrical pieces performed in inn yards within the city limits. To escape the restriction, actor James Burbage built his own theater on land he leased outside the city limits. When Burbage’s lease ran out, the Lord Chamberlain’s men moved the timbers to a new location and created the Globe.

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On June 28, 1776, Edward Rutledge, one of South Carolina’s representatives to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, expresses his reluctance to declare independence from Britain in a letter to the like-minded John Jay of New York.

Contrary to the majority of his Congressional colleagues, Rutledge advocated patience with regards to declaring independence. In a letter to Jay, one of New York’s representatives who was similarly disinclined to rush a declaration (and who was on business in New York during the independence debates), Rutledge worried whether moderates like himself and Jay could “effectually oppose” a resolution for independence. He further wrote, “The Congress sat till 7 o’clock this evening in consequence of a motion of R. H. Lee’s resolving ourselves free & independent states. The sensible part of the house Opposed the motion… They saw no wisdom in a Declaration of Independence, nor any other purpose to be answered by it…No reason could be assigned for pressing into this measure, but the reason of every Madman, a shew of our Spirit…"

 

[CMRivdogs]

June 30

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

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June 30, 1520: Faced with an Aztec revolt against their rule, forces under the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan at heavy cost. Known to the Spanish as La Noche Triste, or “the Night of Sadness,” many soldiers drowned in Lake Texcoco when the vessel carrying them and Aztec treasures hoarded by Cortés sank. Montezuma II, the Aztec emperor who had become merely a subject of Cortés in the previous year, was also killed during the struggle; by the Aztecs or the Spanish, it is not known.

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On June 30, 1905, Albert Einstein publishes “Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies),” a paper that sets out his theory of special relativity, in the German physics journal Annalen der Physik. Einstein’s groundbreaking work shatters the foundations of physics.

After attending the Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich, Switzerland, Einstein worked at the Swiss patent office in Bern from 1902 to 1909. He was employed as a "third- class technical expert," examining inventions for their patentability, most likely among them a gravel sorting machine and a weather indicator. In a letter to his friend Michele Besso, Einstein regarded the patent office as “that secular cloister where I hatched my most beautiful ideas.”

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1934 

In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The event became known as the Night of the Long Knives.

The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready.

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On June 30, 1953, workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, watch as the first completed Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon, rolls off the assembly line. It was one of just 300 Corvettes made that year.

 

Edited Monday at 12:13 PM by CMRivdogs

[CMRivdogs]

 

[CMRivdogs]

July 1

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-1

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At midnight on July 1, 1997, Hong Kong reverts to Chinese rule in a ceremony attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Prince Charles of Wales, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. A few thousand Hong Kongers protested the turnover, which was otherwise celebratory and peaceful.

In 1839, Britain invaded China to crush opposition to its interference in the country’s economic, social, and political affairs. One of Britain’s first acts of the war was to occupy Hong Kong, a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of southeast China. In 1841, China ceded the island to the British with the signing of the Convention of Chuenpi, and in 1842 the Treaty of Nanking was signed, formally ending the First Opium War.

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One of the largest military conflicts in North American history begins on July 1, 1863, when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The epic battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

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1867 The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, is officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act. July 1 will later become known as Canada Day.

During the 19th century, colonial dependence gave way to increasing autonomy for a growing Canada. In 1841, Upper and Lower Canada—now known as Ontario and Quebec—were made a single province by the Act of Union. In the 1860s, a movement for a greater Canadian federation grew out of the need for a common defense, the desire for a national railroad system, and the necessity of finding a solution to the problem of French and British conflict. When the Maritime provinces, which sought union among themselves, called a conference in 1864, delegates from the other provinces of Canada attended. Later in the year, another conference was held in Quebec, and in 1866 Canadian representatives traveled to London to meet with the British government.

On July 1, 1867, with passage of the British North America Act, the Dominion of Canada was officially established as a self-governing entity within the British Empire. Two years later, Canada acquired the vast possessions of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and within a decade the provinces of Manitoba and Prince Edward Island had joined the Canadian federation. In 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway was completed, making mass settlement across the vast territory of Canada possible.

 

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The last Thunderbird, Ford Motor Company’s iconic sports car, emerges from a Ford factory in Wixom, Michigan on July 1, 2005.

 

[romad1]

14 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

July 1

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-1

 

Gettysburg is an incredible combined historical site.  Of all the historic battlefields I have visited I would put them in this order: 

• Verdun: the starkness of it.  There are 100,000 skulls of unidentified dead in the Douaumont Ossuary 
• Gettysburg:  History's hinge is at Little Round Top.  24th Michigan was there. 
• Normandy:  This one sprawls over an entire region but so many incredibly well-preserved sites.  Omaha Beach, Bayeux, the memorial cemeteries, the mulberry, the Orne river and Caen canal bridges.  
• The Market Garden sites in Holland.  The British Airborne Museum is definitely worth a visit. 

I would still like to visit the Canadian WW1 battlefields in Belgium.  if I had a lot of money i'd go to the Pacific battlefields (e.g., Bataan/Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Okinawa).  I don't think you are allowed to go to Iwo Jima and Midway for different reasons.   I might try to go to some of the Napoleonic battlefields in Spain because 1. its Spain and 2. I hear they are visually interesting. 

I didn't think too much of Waterloo.  Too much fawning over Napoleon and not over the Brits and Prussians who beat him.  

There are a lot of battlefields in Scotland and the UK to visit but none of them seem particularly compelling like the above. 

 

 

[romad1]

Does anyone remember the UNESCO World Heritage thread from the previous site?  

This is an interesting conversation starter

List of World Heritage Sites in the United States - Wikipedia

Where should there be UNESCO sites in the US that are not yet?

[ewsieg]

21 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Does anyone remember the UNESCO World Heritage thread from the previous site?  

This is an interesting conversation starter

List of World Heritage Sites in the United States - Wikipedia

Where should there be UNESCO sites in the US that are not yet?

Looking through the tentative list and while there are some significant sites on there, Ellis Island should be next.

[CMRivdogs]

20 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Gettysburg is an incredible combined historical site.  Of all the historic battlefields I have visited I would put them in this order: 

• Verdun: the starkness of it.  There are 100,000 skulls of unidentified dead in the Douaumont Ossuary 
• Gettysburg:  History's hinge is at Little Round Top.  24th Michigan was there. 
• Normandy:  This one sprawls over an entire region but so many incredibly well-preserved sites.  Omaha Beach, Bayeux, the memorial cemeteries, the mulberry, the Orne river and Caen canal bridges.  
• The Market Garden sites in Holland.  The British Airborne Museum is definitely worth a visit. 

I would still like to visit the Canadian WW1 battlefields in Belgium.  if I had a lot of money i'd go to the Pacific battlefields (e.g., Bataan/Corregidor, Guadalcanal, Okinawa).  I don't think you are allowed to go to Iwo Jima and Midway for different reasons.   I might try to go to some of the Napoleonic battlefields in Spain because 1. its Spain and 2. I hear they are visually interesting. 

I didn't think too much of Waterloo.  Too much fawning over Napoleon and not over the Brits and Prussians who beat him.  

There are a lot of battlefields in Scotland and the UK to visit but none of them seem particularly compelling like the above. 

 

 

The National Park service has done wonders with Gettysburg since I visited as a kid, 60 plus years ago. Many areas, especially in downtown Gettysburg seemed a bit too commercial. Meaning a motel very close to Jenny Lind's house/museum. Wax museum, a cool museum of Cliff Arquette's carvings, etc. But then they were attempting to attract a mass audience.

I kind of feel the same way about Appomattox. The NPS has stepped up there game there in recent years. Same with Petersburg, and a few of the smaller battlefields connected with the Seven Days Battles. One of the newer Civil War sites is the old Tredegar Iron Works site in Richmond. They've turned it into The American Museum of the Civil War, telling the story from the North,South, Slave, and Women's points of view. 
 

[romad1]

6 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Looking through the tentative list and while there are some significant sites on there, Ellis Island should be next.

I'd like to see the Rouge Complex and the Willow Run plant put on as the Arsenal of Democracy site.  

 

[CMRivdogs]

19 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Looking through the tentative list and while there are some significant sites on there, Ellis Island should be next.

As should the Freedom Tower in Miami. It served the same purpose as Ellis Island but for refugees from Castro's Cuba

[CMRivdogs]

I'm not sure how it would be framed, or even how to preserve it, but outside the "norm" areas like the Lewis and Clark Trail, Underground Railroad Routes, even things like Route 66 (or Route 30 even) should be better promoted and even preserved in our country

[romad1]

similarly there should be an underground railroad terminus site in Canada.  Maybe St. Catherines where Harriet Tubman lived. 

Edited Tuesday at 02:37 PM by romad1

[CMRivdogs]

 

[romad1]

Just now, CMRivdogs said:

 

Its like a Thomas the Tank Engine episode come to life :--)

[CMRivdogs]

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Having received news of the colonists’ easy capture of Fort Ticonderoga, Guines predicts that the entire British Army will not be capable of subduing the Thirteen Colonies by force of arms. Main source: Orville T. Murphy, CHARLES GRAVIER, COMTE DE VERGENNES

 

[Tigermojo]

11 minutes ago, romad1 said:

similarly there should be an underground railroad terminus site in Canada.  Maybe St. Catherines where Harriet Tubman lived. 

https://amherstburgfreedom.org/

I haven't visited since I was a kid. I grew up in Amherstburg.

[CMRivdogs]

1 minute ago, romad1 said:

Its like a Thomas the Tank Engine episode come to life :--)

Love Thomas the Tank. Spent many hours several years ago watching it with my grandson. 

[CMRivdogs]

Incidentlly, we're leaving tomorrow for our first "Great Adventure" in years. Basically following the Lewis and Clark Trail. After spending the Weekend visiting my son and grandson in Detroit, we'll head for Ashland, Ky to start the trek. We're hoping to end up in Bozeman,MT in about three weeks before heading back. decided trying to hit the Pacific and back was a bit too much travel at one time

[romad1]

7 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

https://amherstburgfreedom.org/

I haven't visited since I was a kid. I grew up in Amherstburg.

Thank you.  If the wife loses her gig we may have to temper our vacation plans for next year and I was lobbying for a trip to Toronto/Niagra Falls.  This makes the list for sure.   

 

Edit: woops...I needed to zoom out.  It is over on Detroit side.  I might make it a stop this year when I drag my kids over the border to prove we have passports. 

Edited Tuesday at 02:56 PM by romad1

[Tigermojo]

4 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Thank you.  If the wife loses her gig we may have to temper our vacation plans for next year and I was lobbying for a trip to Toronto/Niagra Falls.  This makes the list for sure.   

 

Edit: woops...I needed to zoom out.  It is over on Detroit side.  I might make it a stop this year when I drag my kids over the border to prove we have passports. 

If you go, there's also Fort Malden from the war of 1812. Nice restaurants and ice cream by the waterfront park.