This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1906 Wright Brothers are granted a patent for their "flying machine," having applied for one 3 years earlier (patent no. 821,393).

1933 Loch Ness Monster is reportably first sighted by John Mackay.

1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign "Pact of Steel"

1947 First US ballistic missile fired.

[Jimbuna]

1934 American outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow - Bonnie and Clyde - are killed by police in an ambush near Sailes, Louisiana.

1939 Submarine USS Squalus sinks in the Gulf of Maine, drowning 26, 33 remaining crew rescued from a depth of 243 ft (74 m) by divers using newly developed heliox air systems (divers later awarded the Medal of Honor).

1945 The Allies arrest the members of the Nazi Flensburg government, including Admiral Karl Donitz, formally dissolving Nazi Germany.

1945 Lord Haw-Haw (William Joyce) arrested at Danish boundary.

1949 Federal Republic of [West] Germany created out of the American, British and French occupation zones.

1960 Israel announces capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.

[Jimbuna]

1844 Samuel Morse taps out "What hath God wrought" in the world's first telegraph message.

1940 Hitler affirms General von Rundstedts "Stopbevel"

1941 German battleship Bismarck sinks the British battle cruiser HMS Hood; 1,416 die, 3 survive.

1943 U-441 shoots Sunderland seaplane down over Gulf of Biskaje.

1978 American management consultant Marilyn Loden first coins the term "glass ceiling" to describe invisible career barriers for women.

1986 Margaret Thatcher becomes 1st British Prime Minister to visit Israel.

[Jimbuna]

1935 Track and field athlete Jesse Owens equals or breaks 4 world records in 45 minutes at a Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Remembered as "the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport".

1948 Polish war hero Witold Pilecki is executed by communist police after a show trial in Warsaw.

[Rockstar]

The Decision to Go to the Moon: President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Speech before a Joint Session of Congress

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth,"


On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. A number of political factors affected Kennedy's decision and the timing of it. In general, Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States "catch up to and overtake" the Soviet Union in the "space race." Four years after the Sputnik shock of 1957, the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human in space on April 12, 1961, greatly embarrassing the U.S. While Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, he only flew on a short suborbital flight instead of orbiting the Earth, as Gagarin had done. In addition, the Bay of Pigs fiasco in mid-April put unquantifiable pressure on Kennedy. He wanted to announce a program that the U.S. had a strong chance at achieving before the Soviet Union. After consulting with Vice President Johnson, NASA Administrator James Webb, and other officials, he concluded that landing an American on the Moon would be a very challenging technological feat, but an area of space exploration in which the U.S. actually had a potential lead. Thus the cold war is the primary contextual lens through which many historians now view Kennedy's speech. The decision involved much consideration before making it public, as well as enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969. Only the construction of the Panama Canal in modern peacetime and the Manhattan Project in war were comparable in scope. NASA's overall human spaceflight efforts were guided by Kennedy's speech; Projects Mercury (at least in its latter stages), Gemini, and Apollo were designed to execute Kennedy's goal. His goal was achieved on July 20, 1969, when Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong stepped off the Lunar Module's ladder and onto the Moon's surface.


''That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

[Jimbuna]

1908 At Masjed Soleyman (مسجد سليمان) in southwest Persia, the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made, rights acquired by the United Kingdom.

1941 Aircraft from HMS Ark Royal sights German battleship Bismarck.

1945 US drop fire bombs on Tokyo.

1946 Patent filed in US for H-Bomb.

1948 Entire Hagana-arm forces sworn-in as Israeli soldiers.

1956 A fire on board the aircraft carrier USS Bennington in Narragansett Bay, off Rhode Island, kills 103 crew.

1972 US President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign SALT accord.

1982 British ship Atlantic Conveyor carrying Chinook helicopters and destroyer HMS Coventry hit in Falkland war: 39 crew members die.

[Jimbuna]

1905 Japanese fleet destroys the Russian East Sea fleet in the Battle of Tsushima, the only decisive clash between modern steel battleships in history.

1940 British and Allied forces begin the evacuation of Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo) during WWII.

1940 World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 97 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops.

1941 German battleship Bismarck sunk by British naval force.

1942 Dorie Miller awarded navy cross for deeds at Pearl Harbor.

1942 Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich is shot and mortally wounded by Czech rebels in Prague during Operation Anthropoid.

1958 Maiden flight of the F-4 Phantom II.

[Jimbuna]

1431 Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, providing justification for her execution.

1588 Spanish Armada under the Duke of Medina-Sidonia departs Lisbon to invade England.

1936 Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication, in which he set out the theoretical basis for modern computers.

1972 White House "plumbers" break into the Democratic National Headquarters at Watergate in Washington D.C.

[Jimbuna]

1953 Edmund Hillary (NZ) and Tenzing Norgay (Nepal) are first to reach the summit of Mount Everest as part of a British Expedition.

[Jimbuna]

1431 Nineteen year old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France.

1914 The new and then largest Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England to New York City.

1968 Beatles begin work on their only double album "Beatles"

[Aktungbby]

1911: RAY HARROUN WINS THE FIRST INDIANAPOLIS 500 IN HIS MARMON WASP, FEATURING RACING'S FIRST REAR VIEW MIRROR! & WINNING $10,000....WHEN THAT WAS ALOT OF MOOLAH!

When the 40 racecars lined up for the first Indianapolis 500, on May 30, 1911, 39 of them had something in common: There were two men onboard. In the 40th car sat Ray Harroun, all by himself. He was the first driver to race without a riding mechanic to watch for cars from behind. One of the key jobs of the second man in a racecar, who was known as a riding mechanic, was to look backward and alert the driver to what was going on behind him.
Harroun went on to win the race, at least in part because of the aerodynamic advantages his one-man car gave him. The first Indianapolis 500 automobile race: at an average speed of 74.6 mph ...in 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 8 seconds!!

<THE MARMON WASP https://www.historicvehicle.org/national-historic-vehicle-register/vehicles/1911-marmon-wasp/

[Jimbuna]

1878 German battleship SMS Grosser Kurfürst sinks, 284 killed.

1911 RMS Titanic launched in Belfast.

1916 Battle of Jutland: Largest naval battle of World War I between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet which killed 8,645 in an inconclusive battle but strategic British victory. German fleet never puts to sea again in WWI.

1916 Battle of Jutland: British battle cruiser HMS Invincible explodes, only 6 crew members survive.

1940 Major General Bernard Montgomery leaves Dunkirk.

1940 Winston Churchill flies to Paris to meet with French Marshal Philippe Pétain who announces he is willing to make a separate peace with Germany.

1942 U-boats sink and damage 146 allied ships this month (722,666 tons).

1943 42 U-boats sunk by the Allies this month.

1968 Movie star James Stewart retires from the US Air Force after 27 years of service.

1976 The Who set the record for the loudest concert of all time, 120 decibels at 50 metres, at The Valley in Charlton.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1968 Movie star James Stewart retires from the US Air Force after 27 years of service.

1992 (June 1st), SAC is dis-established with its assets and personnel transferred to to the Air Combat Command (ACC).

[Jimbuna]

1936 Queen Mary completes its maiden voyage, arriving in NY.

1939 British submarine "Thetis" sinks in Liverpool Bay with all 99 aboard.

1962 SS officer Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel after being found guilty of war crimes.

[Jimbuna]

1902 British naval officer David Beatty is appointed captain of the cruiser HMS Juno.

1917 Canadian ace Billy Bishop undertakes a solo mission behind enemy lines, shooting down three aircraft as they were about to take off and several more on the ground, for which he is awarded the Victoria Cross.

1943 99th Pursuit Squadron flies 1st combat mission (over Italy).

1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, England.