This date in history

[Red Devil]

1939 Soviet Union invades Eastern Poland allowing Germans to advance West, taking 217,000 Poles prisoner, without a formal declaration of war.

They make a habit of that. Didn't they also invade Finland on the sly, and Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania to mention but a few.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1916 WWI flying ace The Red Baron of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France.

Originally Posted by Von Richthofen's Combat Report

FE2b No7018; 11 squadron: When patrol flyingI detected shrapnel clouds in the directiion of Cambrai. i hurried forth and met a squad which I attacked shortly after 1100. I singled out the last machine and fired several times at close range(ten metres). Suddenly the the enemy propeller stood stock still. the machine went down gliding and I followed untilI had killed the observer who had not stopped shooting until the last moment. Now my opponent went downwards in sharp curves. At approxinately 1200 metrtes a second german machine came along and attacked my victim right down to the ground and then landed next to the English plane. Weather was bright morning with afternoon clouds

Pilot: 2nd Lt> Lional Bertram Morris: died of wounds; age 19. Observer: Captain Tom Rees KIA...: the day of his promotion to captain; age 21 <An F.E.2d observer demonstrating the use of the rear-firing Lewis gun, which required him to stand on the rim of his cockpit. Certainly not how I'd like to be; standing firing at the Red Baron "following" behind??!! Poor Rees "firing till the last moment!"

Early in the F.E.2b's career, a second Lewis gun was added in front of the pilot's cockpit, on a high telescopic mounting so that the pilot could fire forward, over his observer's head. In practice, this gun was appropriated by the observers, especially when they discovered that by climbing onto the rim of their cockpits they could fire backwards over the top wing – to some extent overcoming the notorious deficiency of pusher types in rear defence, although even this failed to cover a very large blind spot under the tail. The observer's perch was a precarious one, especially when firing the "rear gun", and he was liable to be thrown out of his cockpit, although his view was excellent in all directions except directly to the rear.
An F.E.2d observer demonstrating the use of the rear-firing Lewis gun, which required him to stand on the rim of his cockpit. Note the camera, and the (non-standard) fixed Lewis gun for the pilot.
The arrangement was described by Frederick Libby, an American ace who served as an F.E.2b observer in 1916:
When you stood up to shoot, all of you from the knees up was exposed to the elements. There was no belt to hold you. Only your grip on the gun and the sides of the nacelle stood between you and eternity. Toward the front of the nacelle was a hollow steel rod with a swivel mount to which the gun was anchored. This gun covered a huge field of fire forward. Between the observer and the pilot a second gun was mounted, for firing over the F.E.2b's upper wing to protect the aircraft from rear attack ... Adjusting and shooting this gun required that you stand right up out of the nacelle with your feet on the nacelle coaming. You had nothing to worry about except being blown out of the aircraft by the blast of air or tossed out bodily if the pilot made a wrong move. There were no parachutes and no belts. No wonder they needed observers.

[Jimbuna]

1812 Great Fire of Moscow burns out after 5 days, 75% of the city destroyed and 12,000 killed.

1944 British submarine Tradewind torpedoes Junyo Maru: 5,600 killed, including 1,377 allied POWs and 4,200 Javanese slave labourers.

1947 The Central Intelligence Agency officially comes into existence after being established by President Truman in July.

1973 German FR & German DR admitted to UN

1976 Mao Zedong's funeral takes place in Beijing.

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1976 Mao Zedong's funeral takes place in Beijing.

When did his name change from Mao Tse Tung??

[Aktungbby]

The western Wade-Giles romanization of Standard Chinese: 'Mao Tsê Tung' begun and used even by the PRC Foreign Ministry, began to change with the advent of Mao's The Little Red Book and the adoption and use of Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of Mandarin Chinese?!! Both are still in use today. and we will all be using one form or the other after our inevitable indoctrination.

[Red Devil]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

The western Wade-Giles romanization of Standard Chinese: 'Mao Tsê Tung' begun and used even by the PRC Foreign Ministry, began to change with the advent of Mao's The Little Red Book and the adoption and use of Hanyu Pinyin transliteration of Mandarin Chinese?!! Both are still in use today. and we will all be using one form or the other after our inevitable indoctrination.

well put, danke

[Jimbuna]

1893 New Zealand becomes the first country to grant all women the right to vote.

1939 British Expeditionary Force reaches France.

1940 Witold Pilecki is voluntarily captured and sent to Auschwitz in order to smuggle out information and start a resistance.

1943 Liberator bombers sinks U-341

1945 Lord Haw Haw (William Joyce) sentenced to death in London.

[Jimbuna]

1746 Bonnie Prince Charlie flees to France from Scotland.

1860 First British royalty to visit US, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII)

1939 British navy captures German U-27 boat.

1943 Liberator bomber sinks U-338

1945 German rocket engineers begin work in US

1946 Churchill argues for a 'United States of Europe'

1967 British liner Queen Elizabeth II launched at Clydebank Scotland.

1990 Both East and West Germany ratify reunification.

2001 In an address to a joint session of Congress and the American people, US President George W. Bush declares a "war on terror"

[Jimbuna]

1915 Cecil Chubb buys English prehistoric monument Stonehenge for £6,600

1939 Reinhard Heydrich meets in Berlin to discuss final solution of Jews.

1944 Operation Market Garden: Last British paratroopers at Arnhem Bridge surrender after several days of fighting.

1955 Last allied occupying troops leave Austria.

1961 Maiden flight of the CH-47 Chinook transportation helicopter.

1978 The Provisional Irish Republican Army explodes bombs at the RAF airfield near Eglinton, County Londonderry; the terminal building, two aircraft hangars and four planes are destroyed.

1979 Two RAF Hawker Siddeley Harrier jump-jets from RAF Wittering collide over Wisbech in Cambridgeshire. Both pilots eject safely, but three people killed and several injured when one of the aircraft destroys 3 dwellings.

[Jimbuna]

1896 Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the (then) longest reigning monarch in British history.

1914 British cruisers, the Aboukir, Cressy, and Hogue, were torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U 9. 1,459 die.

1943 British midget submarines attack German battleship Tirpitz.

1943 Destroyer HMS Itchen torpedoed and sinks next day.

1943 Destroyer HMS Keppel sinks U-229

1958 US nuclear submarine USS Skate remains 31 days under the Pole (record)

1975 Second assassination attempt on US President Gerald Ford by Sara Jane Moore fails in San Francisco.

1985 French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius appears on TV to confess "Agents of the DGSE sank this boat [Rainbow Warrior]. They acted on orders.”

[Aktungbby]

1954: the Japanese ferry, ToyaMaru, sinks during a typhoon in the Tsugaru Straight. More than 1150 passengers are lost.

On September 26, 1954, an advance party of American soldiers from the 99th Field Artillery Battalion of the 1st Cavalry Division Artillery lost their lives in the capsize of this Japanese ferry boat. There were approximately 1,159 aboard and only 150 survived. Only one American soldier survived, Pfc. Francis P. Goedken from Dubuque, Iowa. Due to high winds of approaching Typhoon No. 15 (Marie), the anchor of the ferry did not hold and the Toya Maru was cast adrift. Water entered the engine room, caused the steam engine to stop, and sent the ferry out of control. She overturned in the high waves. 2Lt. George A. Vaillancourt was awarded the Soldiers Medal posthumously.

http://www.koreanwar-educator.org/to..._toya_maru.htm

[Jimbuna]

1580 Francis Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the Golden Hind.

1918 Beginning of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, more than 1 million American soldiers in the largest and most costly offensive of WWI

1934 British ocean liner RMS Queen Mary is launched; "wins" Blue Riband for fastest passenger crossing of Atlantic, 1936 & 1938-52; retired in 1967, permanently moored and converted to a hotel in Long Beach, California.

1938 Adolf Hitler issues ultimatum to Czech government, demanding Sudetenland.

1940 Luftwaffe bombs Spitfire factory in Woolston, Southampton for second time, 30 killed.

1944 World War II: Battle of Arnhem ends in Allied failure as German forces link up on both sides of the Lower Rhine river and mop up last British resistance.

1950 UN troops in Korean War recapture South Korean capital of Seoul.

1960 Cuban leader Fidel Castro delivers a 4 hour and 29 minute long speech at the United Nations.

1973 Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic (Washington, D.C. to Paris) in record-breaking time (3h33m).

1983 Soviet military officer Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war by judging supposed missile attack from the US an error.

2017 Saudi Arabia announces it is overturning its ban on women driving - last country in the world to do so.

[Jimbuna]

1066 William the Conqueror's troops set sail from Normandy to conquer England.

1779 John Adams negotiates Revolutionary War peace terms with Great Britain.

1938 British ocean liner "Queen Elizabeth" launched at Clydebank, Scotland.

1939 Warsaw surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance.

1940 55 German aircraft shot down above England.

1940 Nazi Germany, Italy & Japan sign 10 year formal alliance (Axis)

1941 Reinhard Heydrich, "butcher of Prague," appointed SS-general (Gruppenfuehrer)

1941 US President Roosevelt launches the 1st Liberty ship, freighter SS Patrick Henry.

1945 US General and head of the Allied occupation of Japan, Douglas MacArthur, meets Emperor Hirohito in Tokyo for the first time.

1956 Great Britain commences 'Operation Buffalo' testing four nuclear fission bombs at Maralinga, South Australia.

1968 France denies UK entry into common market.

1982 Filming begins on "Never Say Never Again" with Sean Connery playing James Bond for the final time.

1991 US President George H. W. Bush decides to end full-time B-52 bombers alert.

[Jimbuna]

1066 William the Conqueror, then Duke of Normandy, lands at Pevensey Bay in Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.

1785 Napoléon Bonaparte, aged 16, graduates from the elite École Militaire in Paris (42nd in a class of 51)

1939 German-Soviet Frontier Treaty is signed by Joachim von Ribbentrop and Vyacheslav Molotov; redraws German and Soviet spheres of influence in central Europe and transfers most of Lithuania to the USSR

1944 Theodore Roosevelt Jr., son of President Theodore Roosevelt, is posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for directing troops at Utah Beach during the D-Day landings.

[Red Devil]

1066 William the Conqueror, then Duke of Normandy, lands at Pevensey Bay in Sussex, beginning the Norman conquest of England.

True. it never was the Battle of Hastings. I think maybe the victorians twisted it like they did with most history. It was the Battle of Pevensea, and nearby to here is a place called Battle. Nowadays migrants land here in the search for the land of milk and honey.