This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1940 - Battle of Britain begins as Nazi forces attacked shipping convoys in English Channel.

1985 - French agents blow up Greenpeace boat Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour, New Zealand.

1991 - Boris Yeltsin sworn in as 1st elected president of Russian Federation.

[Aktungbby]

In January 2006, then French President Jacques Chirac threatened to use nuclear weapons against any country that carried out a state-sponsored terrorist attack against it . During his missile-rattling defence of a €3 billion-a-year nuclear strike force, Chirac said the target was not “fanatical terrorists”, but states that used “terrorist means” or “weapons of mass destruction” against France. The irony seemed lost on him that the only example of state- backed terrorism (Sinking the Rainbow Warrior) against New Zealand, codenamed Operation Satanic, had been committed bythe French secret service on July 10, 1985. French authorities initially covered up the attack witha litany of lies and hypocrisy

Even a French act of state- sponsored terrorism has not stopped the good work...http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/greenpeace/2010/Quarterly/Quarterly_2010_2.web.pdf Weirdly, in light of our own intrusion into Pakistan(technically a 'friendly ally') to kill Osama Bin Laden:"

It is incontrovertible that this bombing was an extraordinary event in the history of New Zealand, and even internationally. It involved covert criminal activity by the security forces of one state on a friendly state’s territory, and against the friendly state’s interest. It is an event that has been, and will remain, important in New Zealand’s history.

http://www.academia.edu/1416895/The_Rainbow_Warrior_bombers_media_and_the_judiciar y On the nature of "functional immunity" by agents of a sovereign state: https://thenewinternationallaw.wordpress.com/tag/rainbow-warrior-affair/

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1812 - US invades Canada (Detroit frontier).

1915 - German cruiser Königsberg sinks off Dar-es-Salam.

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1913 - 150,000 Ulstermen gather and resolve to resist Irish Home Rule by force of arms; since the British Liberals have promised the Irish nationalists Home Rule, civil war appears imminent.

1943 - WWII: Battle of Prokhorovka - Russians defeat German forces in one of the largest ever tank battles.

1957 - US Surgeon Gen Leroy Burney connects smoking with lung cancer.

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1772 - Captain James Cook begins 2nd voyage aboard the Resolution to the South Seas to search for Terra Australis (Southern continent).

1832 - Source of Mississippi River discovered (Henry R Schoolcraft).

1930 - 1st-ever soccer World Cup competition began in Uruguay.

1943 - Greatest tank battle in history ends with Russia's defeat of Germany at Kursk, almost 6,000 tanks take part, 2,900 were lost by Germany.

1985 - "Live Aid" concert raises over $70 million for African famine relief.

[Aktungbby]

1793 Rub-a-dub-dubbing his chronic Eczema in an oatmeal bath, French Montagnard radical revolutionary Jean Paul Marat's revolution is OVER! He is murdered by Charlotte Corday, a Girondist. She is sent to the Guillotine four days later, a heroine in the eyes of oppressed French women. Many political Girondists were executed en-masse by the Montagnards in the Terror during the Revolution.

[Jimbuna]

1789 - Bastille Day-French Revolution begins with the fall of Bastille.

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1963 - Paul McCartney is fined £17 for speeding.

1973 - Ray Davies, announces retirement from Kinks then attempts suicide.

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180 - 6 inhabitants of Scillium in North Africa are executed for being Christians. Earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world.

1936 - Spanish generals Francisco Franco and Emilio Mola lead a right-wing uprising, starting the Spanish Civil War.

[Aktungbby]

1944: 320 men, 2/3 of them African-Americans, are killed, and 390 more injured, when two ammunition ships explode at Port Chicago Naval Magazine in san Francisco Bay California. The holds were being packed with 4,600 tons of explosives–bombs, depth charges and ammunition. Another 400 tons of explosives were nearby on rail cars. The explosion cast a 'mushroom style' cloud 18,000 feet into the air. The pilot of a plane flying at 9,000 feet in the area claimed that metal chunks from the explosion flew past him. The blasts were felt as far away as Nevada and the resulting damage extended as far as San Francisco
A month later, continuing unsafe conditions inspired hundreds of servicemen to refuse to load munitions, an act known as the Port Chicago Mutiny. Fifty men—called the "Port Chicago 50"—were convicted of mutiny and sentenced to long prison terms. Forty-seven of the 50 were released in January 1946; the remaining three served additional months in prison. The NAACP had given the mutiny trial top importance due to the U.S. Navy's policy of putting Negroes into dirty and dangerous jobs with no hope of advancement.
There was no system at Port Chicago for making sure officers and men were familiar with safety regulations. Two formal lectures and several informal lectures were given to the enlisted men by commanding officers, but follow-up confirmation of retained knowledge did not take place.
The enlisted men were leery of working with deadly explosives but were told by officers that the larger munitions were not active and could not explode—that they would be armed with their fuzes upon arrival at the combat theater. Handling of larger munitions, such as bombs and shells, involved using levers and crowbars from individual munitions with levers and crowbars from boxcars, in which they were packed tightly with dunnage—lifting the heavy, grease-coated cylinders, rolling them along the wooden pier, packing them into nets, lifting them by winch and boom, lowering the bundle into the hold, then dropping individual munitions by hand a short distance into place. This series of actions was rough enough that damaged naval shells sometimes leaked identification dye from their ballistic caps.
Commander Paul B. Cronk, head of a Coast Guard explosives-loading detail tasked with supervision of the working dock, warned the Navy that conditions were unsafe and ripe for disaster. The Navy refused to change its procedures and Cronk withdrew the detail.In 1994, the Navy rejected a request by four California lawmakers to overturn the courts-martial decisions. The Navy found that racial inequities were responsible for the sailors' ammunition-loading assignments but that no prejudice occurred at the courts-martial. In the 1990s, Freddie Meeks, one of the few still alive among the group of 50, was urged to petition the President for apardon. Others of the Port Chicago 50 had refused to ask for a pardon, reasoning that a pardon is for guilty people receiving forgiveness; they continued to hold the position that they were not guilty of mutiny. Meeks pushed for a pardon as a way to get the story out, saying "I hope that all of America knows about it... it's something that's been in the closet for so long." In September 1999, the petition by Meeks was bolstered by 37 members of Congress including the U.S. representative for the district containing the disaster site. The 37 Congressmen sent a letter to President Clinton, and in December 1999 Clinton pardoned Meeks. [wiki] Well, I'll be sailing past this location later today ...in silence.

[Jimbuna]

64 - Great Fire of Rome begins under the Emperor Nero.

1925 - Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf (original title was the catchy "Four and a Half Years (of Struggle) Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice").

2012 - Kim Jong-un is officially appointed Supreme Leader of North Korea and given the rank of Marshal in the Korean People's Army.

[Jimbuna]

1941 - British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign.

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1881 - Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull, surrenders to US federal troops.

1969 - 1st men on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from Apollo 11.

1976 - US Viking 1 lands on Mars at Chryse Planitia, 1st Martian landing.

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1969 - Neil Armstrong steps on Moon at 2:56:15 AM (GMT).

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1967 - Jimi Hendrix quits as opening act of the Monkees' tour.

1975 - US House of Representives votes to restore citizenship to General Robert E. Lee.

1994 - OJ Simpson pleads "Absolutely 100% Not Guilty" of murder.