This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1819 Peterloo Massacre, Manchester, England: cavalry charges demonstrators, 15 people killed and 400–700 injured.

1858 Britain's Queen Victoria telegraphs US President James Buchanan for 1st time by transatlantic telegraph cable, he replies "it is a triumph more glorious, because far more useful to mankind, than was ever won by conqueror on the field of battle."

1945 Puyi, the last Chinese Emperor and ruler of Manchukuo is captured by Soviet troops.

1971 Over 8,000 workers go on strike in Derry, Northern Ireland, in protest at the introduction of Internment (allowing suspected terrorists to be indefinitely detained without trial)

2012 Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador.

[Jimbuna]

1590 Governor of Roanoke Island colony, John White, returns from England to find no trace of the colonists he had left there 3 years earlier [or Aug 18, 1591]

1940 Adolf Hitler orders a total blockade of Great Britain.

German raider Komet attacks Dutch SS Kota Nopan.

1943 498 British bombers attack Peenemunde (development base for the V weapons)

1945 Korea is divided into North and South Korea along the 38th parallel.

1960 Francis Gary Powers U-2 spy trial opens in Moscow.

1977 Russian nuclear sub "Artika" is 1st to North Pole.

1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal: US President Bill Clinton admits in taped testimony he had an "improper physical relationship" with the intern and on the same day admits before the nation he "misled people" about the relationship.

[Jimbuna]

1914 US President Woodrow Wilson issues "Proclamation of Neutrality"

1940 Battle of Britain: The air battle known as "The Hardest Day" occurs; Luftwaffe lose approximately 69 aircraft and the RAF lose 68 in one of the largest ever air battles.

1943 Otto Skorzeny's Heinkel-111 shot down at Sardinia.

1976 Korean axe murder incident: 2 US soldiers tasked with cutting down a poplar tree blocking the view of UN observers are killed by North Koreans claiming it was planted by Kim Il-sung in the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

[Jeff-Groves]

1966 Long Tan gets regarded as one of the significant battles fought by Australian forces during the Vietnam War.

[Jimbuna]

1839 Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published "free to the world" in Paris as a gift to the world from the French government.

1914 German fleet bombs the English coast.

1915 British liner "SS Arabic" sunk by German submarine without warning leaving Liverpool for New York; killing 44. Creates diplomatic incident.

1942 World War II: General Friedrich Paulus orders the German 6th Army to conquer Stalingrad.

1942 Over 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers killed, wounded or captured raiding Dieppe, France.

1944 Nazis give parts of Paris to Resistance.

1960 American CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers convicted of spying by USSR (U-2 incident); sentence to 3 years in prison plus 7 in a labour camp, he served 17 months before being exchanged for a captured Soviet KGB spy.

1960 Soviet Sputnik 5 carries 2 dogs, 2 rats, 40 mice, 1 rabbit and fruit flies into space, 1st animals to return alive from orbit.

1965 Auschwitz trials end with 6 life sentences.

1989 1st crack in the Iron Curtain when Hungary opens its borders to Austria for a pan-European picnic for a few hours.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1839 Louis Daguerre's daguerreotype photographic process with complete working instructions is published "free to the world" in Paris as a gift to the world from the French government.

Pics or it didn't happen <Still life with plaster casts, made by Daguerre in 1837, the earliest reliably dated daguerreotypeBoulevard du Temple, Paris, 3rd arrondissement, Daguerreotype. Made in 1838 by inventor Louis Daguerre, this is believed to be the earliest photograph showing a living person. It is a view of a busy street, but because the exposure lasted for 4 to 5 minutes (see shutter speed Daguerre photo explained) the moving traffic left no trace. Only the two men near the bottom left corner, one apparently having his boots polished by the other, stayed in one place long enough to be visible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype

[Jimbuna]

2 Venus and Jupiter in conjunction - possible astrological explanation for Star of Bethlehem.

1908 America's Great White Fleet arrives in Sydney, Australia, to be greeted with a tremendous welcome; 221 American sailors desert to remain in Australia.

1940 British PM Churchill says of Royal Air Force, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

1940 First Polish fighter squadrons fight alongside allies in the Battle of Britain.

1968 During the night 250,000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia in response to the Prague Spring.

[Jimbuna]

1808 Battle of Vimeiro: British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal, the first Anglo-Portuguese victory of the Peninsular War.

1942 German soldiers plant the Nazi flag on Mount Elbrus in the Caucasus.

1944 Battle of Falaise, Normandy, led by Polish Armoured Division and First Canadian Army - largest encirclement on the Western Front leading to surrender and capture of German 7th Army.

1968 Warsaw Pact forces complete their invasion of Czechoslovakia by arresting the Czech leader Alexander Dubček and forcing him to sign the Moscow Protocols.

[Jimbuna]

1485 Battle of Bosworth Field: Henry Tudor's forces defeat English King Richard III during last battle in the Wars of the Roses. Richard is killed, the last English monarch to die in battle.

1780 HMS Resolution, without Captain James Cook, returns to England.

1864 First Geneva Convention adopted in Geneva "for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field" signed by 12 nations.

1944 Adolf Hitler orders Paris to be destroyed.

1962 Failed assassination attempt on French President Charles de Gaulle.

1972 IRA bomb explodes prematurely at a customs post at Newry, County Down - 9 people, including three members of the IRA and five Catholic civilians, are killed in the explosion.

[Jimbuna]

1305 Scottish patriot William Wallace is executed for high treason by Edward I of England at Smithfield, London.

1889 1st ship-to-shore wireless message ("Sherman is sighted") received in the US from Lightship No. 70 to a coastal receiving station at Cliff House in San Francisco.

1939 Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree to the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact and secretly divide Poland between themselves, setting the stage for World War II

1942 Battle of Stalingrad: 600 Luftwaffe planes bomb Stalingrad (40,000 die)

1943 50th day of Battle of Kursk, USSR: Largest tank battle in history ends with Russia's defeat of Germany; over 10,000 tanks take part, nearly 250,000 combatants killed.

1996 Osama bin Laden issues message entitled "A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places"

[Jimbuna]

1814 British forces capture Washington, D.C. and destroy many landmarks (War of 1812)

1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) goes into effect.

1957 At age 17 future England soccer striker Jimmy Greaves scores on his First Division debut for Chelsea against Tottenham Hotspur in a 1–1 draw at White Hart Lane.

1968 France becomes the world's fifth thermonuclear power with a detonation on Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific.

1991 Ukraine declares independence from USSR

[Jimbuna]

1768 Captain James Cook departs from Plymouth, England, on his first voyage on board the Endeavour, bound for the Pacific Ocean.

1875 Captain Matthew Webb makes the 1st observed and unassisted swim across the English Channel in 21 hours and 45 minutes.

1892 British naval officer David Beatty is promoted to lieutenant.

1914 German troops in occupied Belgium begin the 6 week "Sack of Louvain," destroying historical buildings and killing hundreds of civilians.

1921 US signs peace treaty with Germany.

1943 Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten appointed Supreme Allied Commander in South East Asia.

1944 German commander Dietrich von Choltitz surrenders Paris to the Free French forces of Philippe Leclerc, disobeying Adolf Hitler's orders to destroy the city. President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic Charles de Gaulle gives a famous speech at the Hôtel de Ville.

1990 UN security council authorizes military action against Iraq.

1991 Linux is born when Linus Torvalds sends off an email announcing his project to create a new computer operating system.

[Rockstar]

25 August 1939, THE WIZARD OF OZ was released.

The Captain of the Winkie Guards was played by Mitchell Lewis, a 6-year Navy veteran who served on RADM William T. Sampson's flagship USS New York during the Spanish-American War. Lewis appeared in more than 175 films during his career.

[Jimbuna]

1682 English astronomer Edmond Halley first observes the comet named after him.

1922 Japanese cruiser Niitaka driven onto rocks in storm at Kamchatka, 284 killed.

1944 French General Leclerc's 2nd Armored Division and Charles de Gaulle parade down the Champs Elysees in Paris after the liberation of the city from Nazi occupation.

1945 Japanese diplomats board USS Missouri to receive instructions on Japan's surrender at the end of WWII

1985 French government denies knowledge of bombing of the Greenpeace flagship the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland New Zealand.

[Jeff-Groves]

1886 - The British set fire to the White House.

2023 - Millions of Americans wish they would do it again.