This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1916 German submarines torpedo the unarmed French cross-channel packet 'Sussex'

1944 76 Allied officers escape Stalag Luft 3 (Great Escape).

1945 Operation Varsity: In the largest one-day airborne operation of all time, British, US & Canadian paratroopers land east of the Rhine in Northern Germany.

1958 Elvis Presley joins the army (serial number 53310761).

1999 Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country.

[Jimbuna]

1807 British Parliament abolishes slave trade throughout the British Empire; penalty of £120 per slave introduced for ship captains.

1915 First submarine disaster; a US F-4 sank off Hawaii, killing 21.

1917 Canadian ace Billy Bishop claims his first victory, shooting down and mortally wounding German Leutnant Theiller.

1960 First guided missile launched from nuclear powered sub (Halibut).

1961 Elvis Presley performs live on the USS Arizona.

[Jimbuna]

1942 First "Eichmann transport" to Auschwitz & Birkenau concentration camps.

1942 German offensive in North Africa under General Erwin Rommel.

1944 705 British bombers attack Essen.

1945 Allies led by US Marine Corps secure island of Iwo Jima from Imperial Japanese Army, after 18,000 Japanese & 6,000 Americans killed.

1945 British premier Winston Churchill looks over at the Rhine (near Ginsberg).

1945 Generals Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton launch attack at Remagen on the Rhine.

1945 US 7th Army crosses Rhine at Worms.

[Jimbuna]

1977 583 die in aviation's worst ever disaster when two Boeing 747s collide at Tenerife airport in Spain.

[Jimbuna]

1941 Sea battle at Cape Matapan: British fleet under Cunningham defeats Italy.

1942 British naval forces raid Nazi occupied French port of St Nazaire.

1945 Last German V-1 (buzz bomb) attack on London.

2003 In a "friendly fire" incident, two US A-10 Thunderbolt IIs from the 190th Fighter Squadron attack British tanks participating in the invasion of Iraq, killing British soldier Matty Hull.

[Jimbuna]

1848 Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam.

1912 Captain Robert Scott, storm-bound in a tent near South Pole, makes last entry in his diary "the end cannot be far"

1942 British cruiser HMS Trinidad torpedoes itself in the Barents Sea.

1942 British destroyer HMS Campbeltown explodes in St Nazaire: 400 Germans die.

1945 Movie star Jimmy Stewart is promoted to full colonel, one of the few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.

1974 Chinese farmers discover the Terracotta Army near Xi'an, 8,000 clay warrior statues buried to guard the tomb of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang.

1986 Beatle records officially go on sale in Russia.

[Jimbuna]

1867 US buys Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000 (2 cents an acre - Seward's Folly).

1894 George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" premieres at Theatre Royal, South Shields, England.

1944 781 British bombers attack Nuremberg.

1945 World War II: a defecting German pilot delivers a Messerschmitt Me 262A-1 to Americans.

[Jimbuna]

1939 Britain & France agree to support Poland if invaded by Germany.

1943 US errantly bombs Rotterdam, kills 326.

1951 US tanks exceed 38° of latitude in Korea.

1954 USSR offers to join NATO.

1972 Final day of the rum ration in the Royal Canadian Navy.

[Jimbuna]

1905 "SOS" first adopted as a morse distress signal (· · · – – – · · ·) by German government.

1918 United Kingdom: the Royal Air Force is created from the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps.

1924 The Royal Canadian Air Force is formed.

1933 Heinrich Himmler becomes Police Commander of Germany.

1933 Nazi Germany begins persecution of Jews by boycotting Jewish businesses.

1941 The Blockade Runner Badge for German Kriegsmarine is instituted.

1976 Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs found Apple Computer in the garage of Jobs' parents house in Cupertino, California.

[Jimbuna]

1801 Napoleonic Wars: The British led by Horatio Nelson destroy the Danish fleet in the naval Battle of Copenhagen.

1912 Titanic undergoes sea trials under its own power.

1917 US President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany.

1935 Scottish physicist Robert Watson-Watt receives a British patent for RADAR.

1942 USS Hornet with Jimmy Doolittles B-25 departs from San Francisco.

1982 Several thousand Argentine troops seize the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands from Great Britain.

[Jimbuna]

1882 American outlaw Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford at home in St Joseph.

1941 Churchill warns Stalin of German invasion.

1944 British dive bombers attack battle cruiser Tirpitz.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1882 American outlaw Jesse James is killed by Robert Ford at home in St Joseph.

Assassinated! One may reflect that the the last battle of the Civil War took place at Northfield, MN! Robbing the First National Bank in Northfield, Minnesota, where I had checking account in my college days, wasn’t the best career move The Boys ever made.... https://truewestmagazine.com/the-great-northfield-raid/

[Jimbuna]

1581 Francis Drake knighted by Queen Elizabeth I aboard Golden Hind at Deptford.

1949 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty signed in Washington DC.

1973 World Trade Center, then the world's tallest building, opens in New York (110 stories).

1975 Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800.

[Jimbuna]

1939 Membership of Hitler Youth becomes obligatory.

1943 Allies bomb Mortsel, Belgium's worst loss of life during WWII (936 civilians).

1943 Chinese steward Poon Lim is found off the coast of Brazil by a Brazilian fisherman family after being adrift 133 days, after British ship SS Benlomond torpedoed by german U-boat.

1971 US Lt William Calley sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the My Lai Massacre.

[Jimbuna]

1722 Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia, ends tax on men with beards.

1916 German parliament approves unrestricted submarine warfare.

1917 US declares war on Germany, enters World War I.

1945 Giant Japanese battleship Yamato heads to Okinawa,

1945 Massive kamikaze attack on US battle fleet near Okinawa.

2012 US F-18 Hornet crashes into side of apartment building in Virginia with no fatalities.