This date in history

[Catfish]

^ I even see Tito a bit worse than described in this "revisionist" article

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1942: The Battle fleets converge on The Coral Sea
''At 08:16 on 5 May, TF 17 rendezvoused with TF 11 and TF 44 at a predetermined point 320 nmi south of Guadalcanal At about the same time, four F4F Wildcat fighter aircraft from Yorktown intercepted a Kawanishi H6K reconnaissance aircraft from the Yokohama Air Group of the 25th Air Flotilla based at the Shortland Islands and shot it down 11 nmi from TF 11. The aircraft was unable to send a report before it crashed, but when it failed to return to base the Japanese correctly assumed that it was shot down by carrier aircraft. A message from Pearl Harbor notified Fletcher that radio intelligence deduced the Japanese planned to land their troops at Port Moresby on 10 May and their fleet carriers would likely be operating close to the invasion convoy. Armed with this information, Fletcher directed TF 17 to refuel from Neosho. After the refueling was completed on 6 May, he planned to take his forces north towards the Louisiades and do battle on 7 May. IN the meantime, Takagi's carrier force steamed down the east side of the Solomons throughout the day on 5 May, turned west to pass south of San Cristobal (Makira), and entered the Coral Sea after transiting between Guadalcanal and Rennell Island in the early morning hours of 6 May. Takagi commenced refueling his ships 180 nmi (210 mi; 330 km) west of Tulagi in preparation for the carrier battle he expected would take place the next day''....bad weather prevents either force from spotting the other. key mouse to expandThe USS 'Lady Lex' Lexington is serous trouble prior to sinking; somewhere in that photo (aboard the nearby Yorktown) is my very influential sixth-grade teacher, a TBD radioman/gunner at the battle. A large part of my love of history and the first person witness account stems from his verbal accounts. [wiki] & Mr. Kenyon

[Jimbuna]

1260 - Kublai Khan becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire.

[Jimbuna]

1626 - Dutch colonist Peter Minuit buys Manhattan Island from local Indians for 60 guilders worth of trinkets.

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1910:Britain's playboy King Edward VII dies. King since 1901 after Queen Victoria,

‘I never can, or shall, look at him without a shudder’ – Queen Victoria (who had a low opinion of her eldest son Edward)

he was 59 when he became king. He restored some vitality to the monarchy. He made several royal visits and helped to prepare the way for international treaties with France and Russia. The king took a particular interest in military matters. He opposed attempts to reduce public spending on the armed forces and was a strong advocate of the Dreadnought building campaign. The prewar political and anti-socialist movement sins of the father would fall on his son George V...in four short years.

’I believe the emperor of Germany hates me’ - King Edward VII (on rising tensions with his nephew Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany).

1937: The Zeppelin Hindenburg LZ 129 explodes at Lakehurst, New Jersey36 of 97 passengers and crew die. U.S. law prevented the Hindenburg from using helium instead of hydrogen, which is more flammable.
After the crash of the hydrogen-filled British R101, in which most of the crew (48) died in the subsequent fire rather than the impact itself, Hindenburg designer Hugo Eckener sought to use helium, a less flammable lifting gas. However, the United States, which had a monopoly on the world supply of helium and feared that other countries might use the gas for military purposes, banned its export, and the Hindenburg was reengineered. After the Hindenburg disaster, American public opinion favored the export of helium to Germany for its next great zeppelin, the LZ 130, and the law was amended to allow helium export for nonmilitary use. After the German annexation of Austria in 1938, however, Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes refused to ink the final contract. Eckener, no fan of the Third Reich, named the airship for the late German president Paul von Hindenburg and refused Goebbels’ request to name it after Hitler. The Führer, never enthralled by the great airships in the first place, was ultimately glad that the zeppelin that crashed in a fireball didn’t bear his name.... [wiki's or Ickes?] P$: The charred mail aboard was delivered and today is a collector item!1936 at Lakehurst on a good day!

[Jimbuna]

1915 - SS Lusitania sunk by German submarine; 1198 lives lost.

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1928: the minimum voting age for women in Britain is lowered from 30 to 21, the same as men.
Only 58% of the adult male population was eligible to vote before 1918. An influential consideration, in addition to the suffrage movement and the growth of the Labour Party, was the fact that only men who had been resident in the country for 12 months prior to a general election were entitled to vote.
This effectively disenfranchised a large number of troops who had been serving overseas in the war. With a general election imminent, politicians were persuaded to extend the vote to all men and some women at long last. The Representation of the People Act(1918) was passed which allowed women over the age of 30 who met a property qualification to vote. Although 8.5 million women met this criteria, it only represented 40 per cent of the total population of women in the UK.
The same act abolished property and other restrictions for men, and extended the vote to all men over the age of 21. Additionally, men in the armed forces could vote from the age of 19. The electorate increased from eight to 21 million, but there was still huge inequality between women and men. It was not until the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 that women over 21 were able to vote and women finally achieved the same voting rights as men. This act increased the number of women eligible to vote to 15 million.

[Jimbuna]

1945 - V-E Day; after Germany signs unconditional surrender it is announced WWII has ended in Europe.

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1945: A banner year for French Colonialism and a preliminary Arab Spring perhaps?: The Setif Massacre in Algiers begin the same day that Nazi Germany surrendered in WWII. A parade by about 5,000 of the Muslim Algerian population of Sétif to celebrate the victory ended in clashes between the marchers and the local French Gendarmes, when the latter tried to seize banners attacking colonial rule. There is uncertainty over who fired first but both protesters and police were shot and armed men amongst the Muslim marchers then killed Europeans caught in the streets. A smaller scale protest in the neighboring town of Guelma was dispersed the same evening. Attacks on pieds noirs (French settlers) in the neighboring countryside then resulted in the deaths of 103 Europeans, mostly civilians, plus another hundred wounded. The historian Alistair Horne reports that there were a number of rapes and that many of the corpses were mutilated. In particular:“many of the corpses were appallingly mutilated: women with their breasts slashed off, men with their severed sexual organs stuffed into their mouths." That's hate! These attacks killed anywhere between 1,020 (the official French figure given in the Tubert Report shortly after the killings and 45,000 people (as claimed by Radio Cairo at the time). Alistair Horne notes that 6,000 was the figure finally settled on by moderate historians but acknowledges that this remains only an estimate. In February 2005, Hubert Colin de Verdière, France's ambassador to Algeria, formally apologized for the massacre, calling it an “inexcusable tragedy”. It was the most explicit comment by the French State on the massacre. Considering the loss of Haiti in 1803 over the lack of rights-Specifically for colonial subjects 'of color' and our acquiring of the Louisiana Purchase as a direct result; and the post WWII French colonial failure in French Indo-China leading to our Vietnam Experience, these matters seldom remain isolated incidents of little importance. The state of the so- called Arab Spring seen to have begun in Algiers and the recent loss of a US ambassador in neighboring Libya reflect this. Liberté, égalité, fraternité, is in fact the national slogan of the Republic Haiti. To bad no one lives up to ze billing.... [wiki] A recent movie' Outside the Law and Cannes Film Festival nominee dealing with Setif was controversial and sparked protest in 2010...The director, Bouchareb's other film: the highly acclaimed Days of Glory also a 2006 Cannes Film winner, and aired in the US, deals with mistreated Algerian soldiers in the French army in WWII-good flick IMHO

[Fubar2Niner]

2015

The Devil walked into 10 Downing Street again.

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1386 - Treaty of Windsor between Portugal and England (the oldest diplomatic alliance in the world which is still in force).

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1864: General John Sedgwick is killed by a sniper at the battle of Spotsylvania. Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards (900 m) away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, "What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line?" Although ashamed, his men continued to flinch and he said, "Why are you dodging like this? They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Reports that he never finished the sentence are apocryphal, although the line was among his last words. He was shot moments later under the left eye and fell down dead.
Sedgwick was the highest ranking Union casualty in the Civil War. His demise seriously upset Generals Grant AND Confederate General Lee, both of whom had served in the Mexican War with their fellow West Point classmate. There is no record of the identity or location of the sharpshooter. Five confederate sharpshooters claimed credit. Union troops from the 6th Vermont claim to have shot an unidentified sharpshooter as they crossed the fields seeking revenge. Ben Powell of the 12th South Carolina claimed credit, although his account has been discounted because the general he shot at with a Whitworth hexagonal rifled musket with harder alloy hexagonal bullets was mounted, probably Brig Gen. William H. Morris. Wounded 5/9/1864 on horseback in the knee severely, his field-career was ended.>. Thomas Burgess of the 15th South Carolina has also been cited by some veterans.
"On this 9th of May, Ben(Powell) came in about noon, and walking up to me, he said:
"Sergeant, I got a big Yankee officer this morning."
"How do you know it was an officer?" I asked.
"I could tell by the way they behaved; they were all mounted; it was something over half a mile; I could see them good through the telescope; I could tell by the way they acted which was the head man; so I raised my sights and took the chance; and, sir, he tumbled right off his horse. The others dismounted and carried him away. I could see it all good through the glass." Note: a small number of Whitworth rifles were equipped with a four power telescopic sight, designed by Colonel Davidson which, unlike modern rifle scopes, was attached to the left side of the weapon instead of the top. While the telescopic sight was very advanced for its time, it had a reputation for leaving the user with a black eye due to the rifle's fairly substantial recoil.
"Oh Ben," I said, "you shot some cavalryman, and you think it was an officer."
"No, sir, he was an officer, and a big one too. I could tell."
That night the enemy's pickets called over to ours:
"Johnny, one of your sharpshooters killed General Sedgwick today."[wiki]
So we knew that Ben did what he said." Except that Gen Sedgwick was clearly on foot when struck.

[Wolferz]

If the Germans hadn't been so keen on adding thermite to the paint used on the Hindenburg's skin...
Ja Horst. It makes ze paint zo shiny. Firefegneugen!

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Originally Posted by Wolferz

If the Germans hadn't been so keen on adding thermite to the paint used on the Hindenburg's skin...
Ja Horst. It makes ze paint zo shiny. Firefegneugen!

Yeah I watched Myth-Busters on that one too. " Critics point out that port side witnesses on the field, as well as crew members stationed in the stern, saw a glow inside Cell 4 before any fire broke out of the skin, indicating that the fire began inside the airship or that after the hydrogen ignited, the invisible fire fed on the gas cell material. Newsreel footage clearly show that the fire was burning inside the structure. Proponents of the paint hypothesis claim that the glow can be explained. They claim that what witnesses saw was the fire on the starboard side (another proponent claims that a witness saw the fire start from the starboard side) through the outer skin, looking like a glow. However, photographs of the early stages of the fire show the gas cells of the Hindenburg's entire aft section fully aflame. Burning gas spewing upward from the top of the airship was causing low pressure inside, allowing atmospheric pressure to press the skin inwards. It should also be noted that not all fabric on the Hindenburg burned The fabric on several of the tail structures was not completely consumed. That the fabric not near the hydrogen fire extinguished itself is not consistent with the "explosive" dope hypothesis." My post stayed away from causes. but I think personally it was KISS principle: a big gas leak.." Pictures that show the fire burning along straight lines that coincide with the boundaries of gas cells suggest that the fire was not burning along the skin, which was continuous. Crew members stationed in the stern reported actually seeing the cells burning." In any case the era of airships was over.

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1915: The first practical application of moving-coil loudspeakers was established by Danish engineer Peter L. Jensen and Edwin Pridham, in Napa, California. Jensen was denied patents. Being unsuccessful in selling their product to telephone companies, in 1915 they changed strategy to public address, and named their product Magnavox. Jensen was, for years after the invention of the loudspeaker, a part owner of The Magnavox Company. NOT A NEW CONCEPT it seems: Alexander Graham Bell patented his first electric loudspeaker (capable of reproducing intelligible speech) as part of his telephone in 1876, which was followed in 1877 by an improved version from Ernst Siemens. During this time, Thomas Edison was issued a British patent for a system using compressed air as an amplifying mechanism for his early cylinder phonographs, but he ultimately settled for the familiar metal horn driven by a membrane attached to the stylus. However good enough for Napa CA http://napavalleyregister.com/news/local/inventors-of-loudspeaker-honored-in-napa/article_d263a8ef-2a83-509d-9bbd-d571e8c4913a.html Relatives of the inventers gather to honor the day in downtown Napa CA! Somebody better turn that woofer down below 6.0 on the Richter scale though. Some of these damn lowriders with souped-up Boom boxes in the trunk are ruining our local Asphalt!