This date in history

[ivanov.ruslan]

1834, a new style, was born Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

[Aktungbby]

1915: D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and controversial movie is released in Los Angeles: Birth of a Nation under it's original title: The Clansman. Used as a recruiting tool for the KKK. Under President Woodrow Wilson, it was the first American motion picture to be screened at the White House.

On the evening of March 21, 1915, President Woodrow Wilson, son of a Presbyterian minister, attended a special screening at the White House of The Birth of a Nation, a film directed by D.W. Griffith and based on The Clansman, a novel written by Wilson's good friend, Baptist minister Thomas Dixon. The film presented a distorted portrait of the South after the Civil War, glorifying the Ku Klux Klan and denigrating blacks. It falsified the period of Reconstruction by presenting blacks as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) and forcing themselves upon white women. The Klan was portrayed as the South's savior from this alleged tyranny. Not only was this portrayal untrue, it was the opposite of what actually happened. During Reconstruction, whites dominated blacks and assaulted black women. The Klan was primarily a white terrorist organization that carried out hundreds of murders. After seeing the film, an enthusiastic Wilson reportedly remarked: "It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."

Griffith's innovative techniques and storytelling power have made The Birth of a Nation one of the landmarks of film history. In 1992, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. ATTN: Brits: Donald Crisp (Best Supporting Actor: How Green was my Valley) plays General Grant in this one!

[Jimbuna]

1916 French cruiser "Admiral Charner" torpedoed off Syrian coast, kills 374.

1922 Radio arrives at the White House.

1944 U-762 sunk off Ireland.

1952 Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

1960 Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issued an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor".

[Kaye T. Bai]

February 9, 2001 - An American submarine crashes into a Japanese ship off the coast of Hawaii, sinking the latter and killing several of its crew.

[Jimbuna]

1900 Dwight Davis established a new tennis trophy, the Davis Cup.

1941 Nazi collaborators destroy pro-Jewish café Alcazar Amsterdam (Alcazar refused to hang "No Entry for Jews" signs in front of cafe).

1944 U-734/U-238 sunk off Ireland.

1945 HMS Venturer sinks U-Boat 864 off the coast of Norway.

1969 Boeing 747 made its first commercial flight.

[Jimbuna]

1531 Henry VIII recognised as supreme head of Church in England following the schism with Rome.

1943 Transport nr 47 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany.

1944 U-424 sunk off Ireland.

1945 Yalta agreement signed by FDR, Churchill & Stalin.

1975 Margaret Thatcher defeats Edward Heath for leadership of the British Conservative Party.

[Jimbuna]

1921 Winston Churchill becomes British Minister of Colonies.

1938 German troops entered Austria.

1938 The first 'Kindertransport' carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain.

1942 German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen escape from Brest to Germany in a dash up the English Channel.

1946 World War II: Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 121 of 154 captured U-boats.

1999 US President Bill Clinton acquitted by the Senate in his impeachment trial.

2013 North Korea confirms it has successfully tested a nuclear device that could be weaponized.

[Jimbuna]

1942 Hitler's Operation Sealion (invasion of England) cancelled.

1945 Allied planes begin bombing Dresden, Germany; a firestorm results and over 22,000 die.

[Jimbuna]

1797 The Battle of Cape St Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself.

[Aktungbby]

1898: USS Maine, an armoured cruiser, is best known for her loss in Havana Harbor on the evening of 15 February 1898. Sent to protect U.S. interests (epitomizing 'gunboat diplomacy'??!!) during the Cuban revolt against Spain, she exploded suddenly, without warning, and sank quickly, killing nearly three quarters of her crew. The cause and responsibility for her sinking remained unclear after a board of inquiry investigated. Nevertheless, popular opinion in the U.S., fanned by inflammatory articles printed in the "Yellow Press" by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, blamed Spain. The phrase, "remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain", became a rallying cry for action, which came with the Spanish American War later that year. While the sinking of Maine was not a direct cause for action, it served as a catalyst, accelerating the approach to a diplomatic impasse between the U.S. and Spain. Suspected of being the victim of a mine subsequent investigations have arrived at a different conclusion...We owe Spain an apology for thin bulkheads, bad press, and bad coal.

Author Wegner, in his 2001 book Theodore Roosevelt, the U.S. Navy and the Spanish–American War, suggests that a combination of naval ship design, and a change in the type of coal used to fuel naval ships, might have facilitated the explosion postulated by the thorough private-funded ADM Rickover 1974 study. Up to the time of Maine's building, he explains, common bulkheads separated coal bunkers from ammunition lockers and American naval ships burned primarily smokeless anthracite coal.

With an increase in the number of steel ships, the U.S. Navy switched to bituminous coal, which burned at a hotter temperature than anthracite coal, and allowed ships to steam faster. However, Wegner explains, while anthracite coal is not subject to spontaneous combustion, bituminous coal is considerably more volatile. In fact, bituminous coal is known for releasing the largest amounts of firedamp, a dangerous and explosive mixture of gases. Firedamp is explosive at concentrations between 4% and 16%, with most violence at around 10%. A number of bunker fires had, in fact, been reported aboard U.S. warships before Maine's explosion, in several cases nearly sinking the ships. Wegner also cites a 1997 heat transfer study which concluded that a coal bunker fire, of the type suggested by ADM Rickover, could have taken place and ignited the ship's ammunition.

[wiki] All this added up to our takeover of the Philippines at Manila Bay leading to eventual disaster at Bataan (Death March) by 1940's... No military genius here IMHO.

[Catfish]

Even with better coal, surely some pretext would have been found.
(thinking about the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnam)

Well if it all was based on false assumptions, greed and nationalist empire-building, you could just give the Philippines and Cuba back to Spain.

And then, Spain could give it back to those original inhabitants again. Maybe together with South America

[Aktungbby]

BY JINGO! grate minds think alike! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingoism And give back dried up crime ridden California to Mexíco; and Minnesota to the Chippewa, Ojibwa and Santee Sioux-Old Shatterhand and Winnatou would B pleased! I'll just head for Canada(the land of my forbears (thinking about the Gulf of Tonkin and Vietnam) which was a gathering place in the '60's for men in my age group anyway!! http://time.com/4061835/david-miller-draft-card/

[Jimbuna]

1939 German battleship Bismarck was launched.

1942 German U-boat shells Antillian oil refinery.

1944 891 British bombers attack Berlin.

1944 Attack begins at Monte Cassino monastery, Italy.

[Jimbuna]

1940 British search plane finds German supply ship Altmark, used to accommodate aliied sailors from vessles sunk by the Graf Spee, off Norway.

1942 German submarines attack Aruba oil refinery.

[Aktungbby]

1486: The Diet of Frankfort elects Maximilian, Archduke of Austria... King of the Romans!
<H4>Electors:

• Bertold von Henneberg-Römhild, Elector of Mainz (1484–1504)
• John II of Baden, Elector of Trier (1456–1503)
• Hermann IV of Hesse, Elector of Cologne (1480–1508)
• Vladislaus II, King of Bohemia (1471–1516)
• Philip, Elector Palatine (1476–1508)
• Ernest, Elector of Saxony (1464–1486)
• Albert III, Elector of Brandenburg (1470–1486) Perfectly reasonable order in the midst of chaos for sure:

  Max succeeded his father, Frederick III, on the latter's death on August 19, 1493. As wars in Italy made it impossible for Maximilian to undertake the journey to Rome for the Imperial coronation, on February 4, 1508 at Trent, he claimed for himself the title of Electus Romanorum Imperator, "Elected Roman Emperor" or "Roman Emperor by election" (rather than by coronation), which was subsequently accepted (February 12, 1508) by Pope Julius II. Subsequent electees retained the right to call themselves Emperor, rather than merely King, without Papal coronation!

  AN EU before there was an EU!