This date in history

[Aktungbby]

The RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the St Lawrence river

[Jimbuna]

1652 - Battle of Goodwin Sands, off Folkestone, Kent: English 'General at Sea' Robert Blake drives out Dutch fleet under Lieutenant Admiral Maarten Tromp

[BossMark]

1883 - Twelve people were trampled to death in New York City in a stampede when a rumour that the Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing occurred.

1958 - Unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflicts were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

1998 - A powerful earthquake hit northern Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.

[Jimbuna]

1431 - Hundred Years' War: in Rouen, France, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal.

[Aktungbby]

THe beginning of the end in the 20th century and it ain't over yet! 1913: the end of the first Balkan War- leads almost directly to WW .

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1431 - Hundred Years' War: in Rouen, France, 19-year-old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal.

Indeed! a nineteen brave French girl changed the course of history.

[Aktungbby]

1859: a moment in TIME! The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen's Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time.

[Aktungbby]

1916: Jutland! the biggest battle between two main fleets in modern history-a tactical win to the Kaiser's Imperial Fleet but a strategic if costly victory for the Royal Navy. The resource allocation and national spending on the great vessels comes head to head on one day.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

Jutland ranks with Trafalgar, 1805, as one of history's decisive encounters.

I would argue against that actually - it was almost decisive, but did virtually nothing to shift the actual power balance. It was a fine day of great bravery and tragedy for both sides, but it did little to change the course of the war and rather little was learned from it at the time. I think a better title for Jutland is the "greatest naval battle that could've been".

[Aktungbby]

Duly considered with Dreadnaught and Castles of Steel thrown into the argument. Hindsight prevails and Germany and its hope of global power and expansion were shut down at Jutland. No world sea power, no anything else...the land war (trenches) should have stopped right then and there as a tactical exercise in futility for the next two years 1916-1918 after the strategic issue at sea was resolved in a day in 1916. But governments and the men in them seldom see other than the moment they are in, or as Churchill, largely responsible for the buildup of dreadnaughts, said in The River War: "every soldier sees a battle along his particular gunsight." Political and military myopia in war is not uncommon; but it is the greatest killer. The German Navy, as with France, Holland and Spain in previous centuries, simply could not surmount the tremendous geopolitical position of England which covers all major rivers out of Europe and the North Sea. Throwing in the classic removal of the Royal Navy to safety at Scapa Flow at the outset of WWI completely threw off the German battle timetable plan of 1914 to draw the British into a main fleet engagement. All battles...and wars take place in two mediums: time and terrain-England controlled both at sea where it counted most strategically and Germany could only resort to offset warfare ie submarines, a poor second choice in both world wars especially as it politically alienated the USA. And if your tactics and strategy aren't carrying out your political aims, you need to be not doing the war past the point where it has become unfeasible! Von C. in a nutshell!

[CCIP]

I think the trouble, though, is that it was in many ways a foregone conclusion before a shot had even been fired. Everyone involved with the German High Seas Fleet, with the possible exception of the Kaiser, knew that a direct confronation would be futile. Scheer was not seeking a decisive battle against the Grand Fleet at Jutland, and knew to get out as soon as he saw it about to happen. Start to end, the entire thing revolved around trying to trap and destroy a smaller RN unit to improve their balance, and in that sense the Germans almost succeeded at Jutland, with the way Beatty's ships got hit. But it wasn't the first or last time they tried that in the war.

I suppose yes, Jutland proved that German ambitions were and would continue to be futile in open confrontation with the British fleet, but it was basically proving something very self-evident. Putting those dreadnoughts in water was a way of proving that it's wet too, I guess.

On the upside, I still think that Hipper's "death ride" was the single finest action of the dreadnought era

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I think the trouble, though, is that it was in many ways a foregone conclusion before a shot had even been fired. Everyone involved with the German High Seas Fleet, with the possible exception of the Kaiser, knew that a direct confronation would be futile. Scheer was not seeking a decisive battle against the Grand Fleet at Jutland, and knew to get out as soon as he saw it about to happen. Start to end, the entire thing revolved around trying to trap and destroy a smaller RN unit to improve their balance, and in that sense the Germans almost succeeded at Jutland, with the way Beatty's ships got hit. But it wasn't the first or last time they tried that in the war.

I suppose yes, Jutland proved that German ambitions were and would continue to be futile in open confrontation with the British fleet, but it was basically proving something very self-evident. Putting those dreadnoughts in water was a way of proving that it's wet too, I guess.

On the upside, I still think that Hipper's "death ride" was the single finest action of the dreadnought era

Pretty much concur....the outcome from the link below, a good reference site relating to the battle:

The most far reaching result of Jutland was that it convinced Scheer and the German Naval staff that the only way of gaining naval victory was via unrestricted submarine warfare, and not by defeating the British in battle. The Germans had fought Jutland as well or better than could be expected, whilst the British could be expected to perform better next time, and yet nothing had changed. However it was not the German submarine blockade of Britain but the British blockade of Germany, maintained under the guns of the Grand Fleet, that eventually did most to bring the war to an end.

http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/outcome.html

[Jimbuna]

1957 - Great Britain performs nuclear test at Christmas Island (atmospheric)

[Jimbuna]

193 - Roman Emperor Didius Julianus is assassinated.

[BossMark]

1533 - Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s new queen, was crowned.

1939 - The Douglas DC-4 made its first passenger flight from Chicago to New York.

1941 - The German Army completed the capture of Crete as the Allied evacuation ended.

1943 - During World War II, Germans shot down a civilian flight from Lisbon to London.

1944 - The French resistance was warned by a coded message from the British that the D-Day invasion was imminent.