This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1912 In the face of ever-increasing German naval power, the British Admiralty decides to recall British warships from the Mediterranean and base them in the North Sea.

1942 Warsaw Ghetto Jews (300,000) are sent to Treblinka Extermination Camp.

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

2011 Norway is the victim of twin terror attacks, the first a bomb blast targeting government buildings in central Oslo, second a massacre at a youth camp on island of Utøya.

[Jimbuna]

1942 Hitler's Directive number 45: order to occupy Stalingrad.

1943 Battle of Kursk, USSR ends in German defeat (6,000 tanks).

1945 Marshal Henri Pétain, leader Vichy-regime, goes on trial.

1966 Napoleon XIV releases "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha! Ha!"

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1945 Marshal Henri Pétain, leader Vichy-regime, goes on trial.

His trials were just beginning! 1951: Marshal Henri Pétain dies in prison..

Over the following years Pétain's lawyers and many foreign governments and dignitaries, including Queen Mary and the Duke of Windsor, appealed to successive French governments for Pétain's release, but given the unstable state of Fourth Republic politics no government was willing to risk unpopularity by releasing him. As early as June 1946 U.S. President Harry Truman interceded in vain for his release, even offering to provide political asylum in the U.S. A similar offer was later made by the Spanish dictator General Franco..Pétain required constant nursing care, and he was often suffering from hallucinations, e.g. that he was commanding armies in battle, or that naked women were dancing around his room. By the end of 1949, Pétain was completely senile, with only occasional moments of lucidity.

[Jimbuna]

1943 Operation Gomorrah begins - RAF begins bombing Hamburg (till 3rd August), creating firestorm and killing 42,600.

1945 US destroyer Underhill torpedoed West of Guam.

1969 Apollo 11 returns to Earth.

[Aktungbby]

AFTER GOMORRAH THERE WAS NO TOMORRAH! THE VERY DEFINITION OF A FIRESTORM; The architect of that destruction was Air Chief Marshal Sir Arthur ‘Bomber Harris, head of British Bomber Command. The stocky Harris had great intelligence, enormous determination and an unyielding hatred of Germany. His aim as chief of Britain’s bomber offensive was to destroy Germany’s cities.

A large number of those killed died seeking safety in bomb shelters and cellars, the firestorm consuming the oxygen in the burning city above. The furious winds created by the firestorm had the power to sweep people up off the streets like dry leaves:

Some people who tried to walk along, they were pulled in by the fire, they all of the sudden disappeared right in front of you (...) You have to save yourself or try to get as far away from the fire, because the draught pulls you in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II

THE NEW TRICK WHIC WORKED ONLY TOO WELL;

Window also was prepared. The new device seemed an unlikely weapon to RAF crews. It consisted of bundles of metalized paper strips–each bundle had 2,200 strips–made of coarse black paper with aluminum foil stuck to one side. British scientists had theorized that the strips of metalized paper floating in the air would swamp German radar with false echoes. The idea was not new. Japanese naval aircraft had used such a weapon–called Giman-shi, or deceiving paper–during night attacks on Guadalcanal. Adolf Hitler’s scientists had developed their own, called Duppel, in Berlin and tested it. The test was so successful that the Germans were afraid it would fall into British hands and be used against them. Incredibly, Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring, chief of the Luftwaffe, not only ordered all research on Duppel stopped but forbade development of a counter to the device.

Now, from Lancasters and Handley Page Halifaxes, bundles were hurled out flare chutes into the freezing dark, a wearying task. In all, 7,000 bundles were dropped.
Down below, Luftwaffe radar stations that had been easily plotting RAF bomber streams were flooded with false returns. Hostile planes were everywhere. The whole defense system was blinded.
German ground controllers panicked. All Luftwaffe planes were ordered to simply fly toward Hamburg and find their own targets. Rolf Angersbach, in a Dornier Do-217, obediently headed for the city and found himself surrounded by slow-moving radar contacts…but no planes. After firing his guns all over the sky, he was ordered to land to tell his bosses what was going on. Angersbach later recalled that he found everyone helpless and bewildered.

http://www.historynet.com/allied-aerial-destruction-of-hamburg-during-world-war-ii.htm

[Jimbuna]

1797 Horatio Nelson loses more than 300 men and his right arm during the failed conquest attempt of Tenerife (Spain).

1814 English engineer George Stephenson introduces his first steam locomotive, a travelling engine designed for hauling coal on the Killingworth wagonway named Blücher.

1943 First warship named after an African American launched - USS Leonard Roy Harmon, a Buckley class destroyer.

1944 World War II: Operation Spring - one of Canada's bloodiest days, 18,444 casualties and 5,021 killed.

1999 86th Tour de France: Lance Armstrong wins 1st of 7 consecutive Tour de France titles but is later disqualified for drug cheating.

[Jimbuna]

1914 Irish Volunteers unload a shipment of 1,500 rifles and 45,000 rounds of ammunition arrive from Germany aboard Erskine Childers' yacht the Asgard; British troops fire on jeering crowd on Bachelors Walk, Dublin, killing three citizens.

1944 The first German V-2 rocket hits Great Britain (nicknamed "gasometer").

1945 Declaration of Potsdam: US, Britain and China demand the Japanese surrender during WWII.

1945 Japanese government disregards US ultimatum.

1945 US cruiser Indianapolis reaches Tinian with atom bomb.

1945 Winston Churchill resigns as Britain's Prime Minister after election defeat.

1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva depart Kirtland Army Air Field to transport the plutonium core for the Fat Man bomb (bombing of Nagasaki) to the island of Tinian where the bomb is assembled.

[Jimbuna]

1586 Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from Virginia.

1866 Atlantic telegraph cable successfully laid (1,686 miles long).

1944 First British jet fighter used in combat (Gloster Meteor).

1953 North Korea and UN sign armistice.

1972 The F-15 Eagle flies for the first time.

1987 John Demjanjuk, accused Nazi "Ivan the Terrible", testifies in Israel.

2012 Queen Elizabeth II opens the 30th Olympics in London, United Kingdom (with some help from 007).

[Jimbuna]

1914 Austria-Hungary decides against mediation and declares war on Serbia - first declaration of war of WWI.

1914 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill orders British Grand Fleet to Scapa Flow.

1938 34,000-ton Cunard-White Star liner Mauretania launched at Birkenhead.

1943 Operation Gomorrah: RAF bombing over Hamburg causes a firestorm that kills 42,600 German civilians.

1945 Japanese premier Suzuki disregards US ultimatum to surrender.

1945 Physicist Raemer Schreiber and Lieutenant Colonel Peer de Silva arrive on the Pacific island of Tinian with the plutonium core used to assemble the Fat Man bomb used in the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9.

2005 The Provisional Irish Republican Army call an end to their thirty year long armed campaign in Northern Ireland.

[Jimbuna]

1921 Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

1945 After delivering the Atomic Bomb across the Pacific, the cruiser USS Indianapolis is torpedoed and sunk by a Japanese submarine.

1949 Moscow ends the blockade of West Berlin.

1973 Led Zeppelin have more than $200,000 in cash stolen from a safety-deposit box at the New York Hilton.

[Jimbuna]

1916 German saboteurs blow up a munitions plant on Black Tom Island, New Jersey.

1945 After delivering the Atomic Bomb across the Pacific, the cruiser USS Indianapolis is torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-58. 880 of the crew died, many after being attacked by sharks, the inspiration for the movie Jaws.

1949 British warship HMS Amethyst escapes down Yangtze River, having been refused a safe passage by Chinese Communists after 3-month standoff.

1963 British spy Kim Philby found in Moscow.

1966 FIFA World Cup Final: Striker Geoff Hurst scores a hat trick as England beats West Germany 4-2 a.e.t. in London, England.

[Jimbuna]

2007 Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

[Jimbuna]

1798 Battle of the Nile: British Royal Navy under Admiral Horatio Nelson attacks and decimates the French fleet at Aboukir Bay off the Nile Delta, Egypt.

1944 Anne Frank's last diary entry; 3 days later she is arrested.

1944 Polish resistance fighters of the Home Army launch the Warsaw Uprising, the largest military effort undertaken by a resistance movement in occupied Europe.

1945 Japanese city Toyama destroyed by B-29's.

1958 US atomic submarine USS Nautilus begins first transit of North Pole "operation Sunshine"

[Jimbuna]

1934 Adolf Hitler becomes commander-in-chief of German armed forces.

1943 Lt John F. Kennedy's PT-boat 109 sinks at Solomon islands.

1945 After 3½ days suffering exhaustion, lack of water and shark attacks in the Philippine Sea, the surviving crew of USS Indianapolis are spotted by Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn, a PV-1 Ventura pilot on a routine sector search. 316 had survived.

1961 Beatles first gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club.

[Mr Quatro]

1945-08-02 After 3½ days suffering exhaustion, lack of water and shark attacks in the Philippine Sea, the surviving crew of USS Indianapolis are spotted by Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn, a PV-1 Ventura pilot on a routine sector search. 316 had survived.