This date in history

[Von Tonner]

On this day in 1945, the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. By then, an estimated 1.1 million people had been killed at the camp.

[Jimbuna]

1944 - U-271 & U-571 sunk off Ireland.

[Aktungbby]

1964: Stanley Kubrick's black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb opens in theaters to both critical and popular acclaim. Little is needed to grasp Kubrick's satirical attack on the American and Russian policies of nuclear stockpiling and massive retaliation. The film's jabs at some core beliefs of America's defense strategy struck a chord with the American people who had survived the frightening Cuban Missile Crises of 1962--when nuclear annihilation seemed a very real possibility--the American public was willing to question the nation's reliance on nuclear weapons. I'm in some limbo myself. My dad who served in B-29 super-fortresses off Tinian was scheduled for the invasion of Japan in WWII. His astute view of Hiroshima was 'that it was the only reason I (me) was on the planet as he had not expected to survive the war' with it's estimate of casualties for the pre-atomic invasion of the Japanese home islands. Peters Sellers as Dr. Strangelove: Very strangely; the ride we've been on ...all our lives! IMHO! The 'dooms day clock is recently posted at 5 minutes to KA BOOM BBYSlim Pickens as Major T. J. "King" Kong ridin' the nuke....all the way in....kinda drives the point home...so to speak!

[BossMark]

1856-The Victoria Cross, Britain's highest military decoration for gallantry, is created by royal warrant.

1886-German engineer Karl Benz patents the first practical car powered by a petrol internal combustion engine.

2002-Iraq, North Korea and Iran are branded the 'axis of evil' by US President George W Bush.

[Jimbuna]

1933 - German president Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as chancellor.

[BossMark]

1649-Charles 1is beheaded for treason, outside the Banqueting Hall in the Palace of Whitehall, London.

1948-Indian nationalist leader Mohandas Gandhi in assassinated by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse in Delhi.

1972-British paratroops shoot 13 people dead during a civil rights march in Londonderry (bloody Sunday)

[Jimbuna]

1661 - Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years.

[Aktungbby]

^indeed! he was a man of many parts for 301 years! '...The monarchy was restored and Charles I’s son was invited back and crowned Charles II. One of the first acts of the new monarchy was to round up all those involved in the execution of Charles I. This included the corpse of Oliver Cromwell which was disinterred from Westminster Abbey and put on trial in Westminster Hall. His corpse, being unable to issue a defence, was found guilty of regicide and hanged at Tyburn; and the head placed on a spike outside Parliament.. There the head remained throughout the entirety of Charles II’s reign. Those Scottish Stewarts I tell ya! In 1685, a terrible gale broke the spike and sent the head tumbling into Parliament square. It came to rest outside the Exchequer’s Office. A guard outside the office came upon the head, and thinking to make some money, hid it under his coat and took it home. Besides being hidden in a chimney for years, used as a curio relic, the head, proven to be the real thing, was finally buried...On the 25th of March 1960, the head was finally interred again by the last owner, Horace Wilkinson, in a secret location near the antechapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Cromwell had been the Member of Parliament for Cambridge before he became Lord Protector). The burial was not announced until October two years later.' Thus Oliver Cromwell’s head was finally laid to rest after a journey lasting 301 years. Finis to the tale...er head! I love happy endings...whichever end that may be! http://thedailybeagle.net/2014/01/10/what-happened-to-oliver-cromwells-head/

[Jimbuna]

1917 - Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral merchant shipping.

[Jimbuna]

1901 - Queen Victoria's funeral takes place.

[Aktungbby]

1943: The remaining Nazi forces at Stalingrad surrender. "The 6th Army will hold its positions to the last man and the last round." Von Paulus held out until January 31, 1943. Of more than 280,000 men under Paulus' command, half were already dead or dying, about 35,000 had been evacuated from the front, and the remaining 91,000-110,000 were hauled off to Soviet POW camps.
Pockets of German belligerence continued until February 2. Hitler berated Von Paulus for not committing suicide. Von Paulus, captured by the Soviets, repaid Hitler by joining the National Committee for Free Germany, and urging German troops to surrender on other battlegrounds in the USSR. Approx. 5,000 captured Germans survived captivity to return to Germany.For them the battle was only one signpost on a long road of misery.
Strategically, Germany would never recover from the defeat of Stalingrad. Its army was spent and its political will severely disrupted. Still, it would be two more grim years before the Nazis finally surrendered.
Through a great victory for the Soviet Union, the Battle of Stalingrad is, IMHO, one of the saddest chapters in military history-due to the Fuhrer's insistence on eliminating his opponent's 'namesake' city. It's death and ferocity has seldom been matched. Von Paulus after capture. The record is somewhat unclear as to whether Paulus actually surrendered. He insisted he had not; he was waiting in another room when Soviet troops burst into the basement, and one of his adjutants supposedly gave up. Photo: Von Paulus surrendered... It would also appear that deaths on the battlefield were the least of the German problems... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union Truly a race war to the death... and a one-way ticket to Siberia.

[Jimbuna]

1966 - 1st soft landing on Moon (Soviet Luna 9).

[Aktungbby]

1943: During the early morning hours at 12:55 a.m. USAT Dorchester was torpedoed by U-223. The damage was severe, boiler power was lost, there was inadequate steam to sound the full 6-whistle signal to abandon ship, and Dorchester sank by the bow in about 20 minutes. Loss of power prevented the crew from sending a radio distress signal, and no rockets or flares were launched to alert the escorts. A severe list prevented lifeboats, being launched on the portside and some capsized from overcrowding. Survivors became so stiff from cold, they could not grasp the cargo nets on rescue vessels. The crew of the escort Escanaba employed a new "retriever" rescue technique: swimmers clad in wet suits swam to victims in the water and secured a line to them so they could be hauled onto the ship. Dorchester is best remembered today for four of the Army officers among the military personnel being transported overseas for duty: the Four Chaplains who died because they gave up their life jackets to save others. Of the 900 men aboard only 230 survived. The sinking of the Dorchester was the worst single loss of American personnel(675) of any American convoy during World War II. It was U-223's first patrol and sinking under Karl-Jürg Wächter. U-223 would be sunk in the Mediterranean with 27 survivors; in a terrific battle with three destroyers, sinking one of them, HMS Laforey. Karl-Jürg Wächter would perish in the Baltic enroute to Norway on 3/5/1945 aboard his XXI U-2503 from a Beaufort rocket which penetrated the control room, killing 12 of the crew near Ömo Island Denmark. The beached, scuttled U-boat was later blown up. War at sea is hard.

[Jimbuna]

1789 - 1st US electoral college chooses Washington & Adams as President and Vice-President.

[Jimbuna]

1885 - News of fall of Khartoum reaches London.