This date in history

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1933: In a bizarre scene captured by news photographers, Lya Graf, a female circus dwarf, sat in the lap of financier J.P. Morgan Jr. during a recess of a Senate hearing on the stock market crash of 1929. Ms Graf, one of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, “little people” known as The Dancing Dolls. also a circus press agent, was met cordially by the witness, financier and stock mogul J.P. Morgan Jr..." Although he was initially startled, Morgan was genial and rose and shook her hand. Naturally, the photographers were stepping all over each other to get a picture of the exchange. Morgan apparently laughed and had a brief exchange with the demure lady, in which he told her he had a grandchild bigger than she. It has since gone down as one of the more bizarre meetings to ever take place in any Senate meeting room…that we know about at least." With the unscheduled photo-op over, Lya and sister were on their merry way to do more sight-seeing." For J.P. Morgan, his image as a curmudgeon was effectively ended. Sadly, Ms Graf returned two years later to Germany. Her true name was Margaret Furthmann. Lya was half-Jewish. Dwarves in Hitler's Germany were tolerated if show-people. But a midget Jew was something else - showperson or not.The Furthmann family were sent to a concentration camp. Many surmise it was to Poland at Auschwitz/Birkenau but that camp was not established till 1940. It is more likely they were taken to Germany's camps of Dachau or Buchenwald where Lya would have perished of malnourishment and forced labor. 1943: Famed actor, Leslie Howard, Jewish on both sides of the family tree, is killed when his civilian aircraft, A Douglas DC-3, with 17 people, is shot down en route from Portugal to England by German fighter aircraft. Howard's activities in WWII had included acting and filmmaking. He was active and effective in anti-German propaganda and reputedly involved with British or Allied Intelligence, which may have led to his death over the Bay of Biscay, sparking conspiracy theories regarding his death. The potential aircraft shoot down may have been known in advance but kept secret to avoid tipping off the breach of the Enigma decoding to the Germans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Howard_(actor)

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

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1989 - Beginning of the Tiananmen Square Massacre as Chinese troops open fire on pro-democracy supporters in Beijing.

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1940 - British complete the "miracle of Dunkirk" by evacuating 300,000 allies troops from France.

(Well done Dad)

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1783: the Montgolfier brothers demonstrate their hot air balloon over Ammonay France 1784:Opera star Elisbeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untetherd Montgolfier balloon over Lyon, France.
Monsieur Fleurant ( the pilot) originally planned to fly the balloon with Count Jean-Baptiste de Laurencin, but the count, having suffered a near calamity-fire-on a previous flight- Chivalrously gave his position on The Gustave to Élisabeth Thible, a celebrated opera star of the time. When the balloon left the ground, Thible, dressed as the Roman goddess Minerva,(goddess of wisdom?!!) and Fleurant sang two duets from Monsigny's La Belle Arsène, The flight lasted 45 minutes, covered four kilometres and achieved an estimated height of 1,500 meters. It was witnessed by King Gustave III of Sweden, in whose honor the balloon was named. During the bumpy landing, Thible turned an ankle as the basket hit the ground. She was credited by Fleurent with the success of the flight; both because she fed the balloon's fire box en route and by exhibiting her remarkable courage.[wiki] Proof of Yogi Berra's (among others) adage: "It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings!"

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1944 - 1st British gliders touched down on French soil for D-Day invasion.

1944 - German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel goes on leave just before WWII D-Day landings by the Allies.

1944 - General Eisenhower decides invasion set for June 6.

[Rockstar]

https://greatspeeches.wordpress.com/...june-5th-1944/

Patton’s speech to the Third Army – June 5th, 1944

Patton’s speech to the Third Army Somewhere in England, June 5th, 1944.
“Be seated.” Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bull****. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.
You are here today for three reasons. First, because you are here to defend your homes and your loved ones. Second, you are here for your own self respect, because you would not want to be anywhere else. Third, you are here because you are real men and all real men like to fight. When you, here, every one of you, were kids, you all admired the champion marble player, the fastest runner, the toughest boxer, the big league ball players, and the All-American football players. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win all of the time. I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost nor will ever lose a war; for the very idea of losing is hateful to an American.
You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he’s not, he’s a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared. Some men get over their fright in a minute under fire. For some, it takes an hour. For some, it takes days. But a real man will never let his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood. Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base. Americans pride themselves on being He Men and they ARE He Men.
Remember that the enemy is just as frightened as you are, and probably more so. They are not supermen. All through your Army careers, you men have bitched about what you call “chicken **** drilling.” That, like everything else in this Army, has a definite purpose. That purpose is alertness. Alertness must be bred into every soldier. I don’t give a **** for a man who’s not always on his toes.
You men are veterans or you wouldn’t be here. You are ready for what’s to come. A man must be alert at all times if he expects to stay alive. If you’re not alert, sometime, a German son-of-an-*******-bitch is going to sneak up behind you and beat you to death with a sock full of ****! There are four hundred neatly marked graves somewhere in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job. But they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before they did.
An Army is a team. It lives, sleeps, eats, and fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is pure horse ****. The bilious bastards who write that kind of stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know any more about real fighting under fire than they know about ****ing! We have the finest food, the finest equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity those poor sons-of-bitches we’re going up against. By God, I do. My men don’t surrender, and I don’t want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he has been hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight back. That’s not just bull **** either. The kind of man that I want in my command is just like the lieutenant in Libya, who, with a Luger against his chest, jerked off his helmet, swept the gun aside with one hand, and busted the hell out of the Kraut with his helmet. Then he jumped on the gun and went out and killed another German before they knew what the hell was coming off. And, all of that time, this man had a bullet through a lung. There was a real man! ...

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1944 - Operation Neptune, D-Day: 150,000 Allied Expeditionary Force lands in Normandy, France in WWII.

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Rule one of warfare: Never be in the first wave...

Later, many of the men of the Big Red One would say that Capa was insane to go in with the first wave of the invasion when he did not have to.

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=29YL535ZXX00 Even out of focus...still the most eloquent shot of chaos on the beach...plan A is now...plan B! The total time Capa spent on Omaha Beach was approximately 90 minutes; But he lived up to his own billing:

If your pictures aren't good enough your not close enough...

I held my camera over my head. . . . I stepped into the sea between two bodies . . . and suddenly I knew I was running away,” Capa wrote. As he reached a medical transport boat, he felt an explosion and found himself covered with feathers from the down jackets of the men who had just been blown apart. As the boat pulled back from the beach, the skipper cried; his assistant had literally been exploded all over him.

!!! pics or it didn't happen!

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1944 - Claus von Stauffenberg meets Hitler.

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793 - Vikings plunder St Cuthbert's monestary on Lindisfarne.

1969 - General Franco closes Spain's frontier with Gibraltar.

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Monday, 8 June 632 : the prophet Muhammad dies at Medina at the age of 62 or 63, in the house of his wife Aisha. With his head resting on Aisha's lap, he asked her to dispose of his last worldly goods... (seven coins) When bin Saud took Medina in 1805, Muhammad's tomb was stripped of its gold and jewel ornaments. Adherents to Wahhabism, bin Sauds' followers destroyed nearly every tomb dome in Medina in order to prevent their veneration, and the one of Muhammad is said to have narrowly escaped. Similar events took place in 1925 when the Saudi militias retook—and this time managed to keep—the city In the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, burial is to take place in unmarked graves.Although frowned upon by the Saudis, many pilgrims continue to practice a ziyarat—a ritual visit—to the tomb. Although banned by the Saudis, the first photos from inside of the tomb of Muhammad and his daughter's (Fatemeh) house were published in October 2012 demonstrating a very simple construction, decorated in green. [wiki]

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1934 - Donald Duck made his début in the Silly Symphonies cartoon "The Wise Little Hen."

1940 - Norway surrendered to the Nazis during World War II.

1945 - Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki declared that Japan would fight to the last rather than accept unconditional surrender.

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1977 - Silver jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain celebrated with fireworks.

1997 - British lease on New Territories in Hong Kong expires.

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1985 - Coca Cola announces they'd bring back their 99-year-old formula.

1994 - China performs nuclear test at Lop Nor, PRC.