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1918: The SS Tuscania is sunk by UB-77. The ship left Hoboken, New Jersey, on her final voyage on 24 January 1918 carrying 2,013 American troops and a crew of 384. She proceeded to cross the Atlantic bound for Le Harve. On 5 February the convoy was sighted seven miles north of the by the German Submarine UB-77 under the command of Lt. Cdr. Wilhelm Meyer. He fired two torpedoes at the Tuscania, the first of which missed, the second scoring a direct hit. By 7:00pm all the ship's lifeboats had been launched, but approximately 1,350 men remained on board. The convoy's escorting destroyers assisted in removing these, but were hampered by the continuing presence of the UB-77 in the area which fired an additional 'eel' at escort HMS Mosquito during the rescue. The Tuscania finally sank four hours after being struck; 230 people were lost. One estimate indicated 201 of these were American troops, the remainder British crew members.

The Tuscania was the first ship carrying American troops to be sunk, and public opinion in the USA regarded its loss as an outrage. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-TuscaniaI.jpg http://www.armin-grewe.com/islay/tus...can-plaque.jpg Memorial on the Isle of Islay. One survivor of note: Harry Truman who famously died in the Mt. St. Helens Volcano eruption when he refused to leave his Spirit Lake Lodge he operated for 52 years...Nothing like going out on your own terms! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...arrytruman.jpg :salute:

Hasta la vista-Memphis

1812: the most violent of a series of earthquakes near Missouri causes a so-called fluvial tsunami in the Mississippi River, actually making the river run backward for several hours. The series of tremors, which took place between December 1811 and March 1812, were the most powerful in the history of the US. The one on todays date was estimated at an amazing 8.8-magnitude (1906 San Francisco quake was only 7.8) and was probably one of the strongest quakes in human history. Church bells rang as far away as Boston, thousands of miles away, from the shaking. Brick walls were toppled in Cincinnati. In the Mississippi River, water turned brown and whirlpools developed suddenly from the depressions created in the riverbed. Waterfalls were created in an instant; boats were helplessly thrown over falls, killing the people on board. Many of the small islands in the middle of the river, often used as bases by river pirates, permanently disappeared. Large lakes, such as Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee and Big Lake at the Arkansas-Missouri border, were created by the earthquake as river water poured into new depressions. To misquote the # 1 1959 Johnny Horton hit ballad: if you were "a takin a (flat-boat?) trip down the mighty Mississip' to New Orleans markets...you were considerably delayed AND going northward...and that only if you were lucky!http://steamboattimes.com/images/fla...d1600x1118.jpg:hmph: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ad/NMSZBig.gif A little more perspective: Not if...WHEN! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...zones-USGS.png

1952 - Elizabeth II is proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.

1763 - Treaty of Paris ends French-Indian War, surrendering Canada to Britain.

1906 - British battleship HMS Dreadnought launched after only 100 days, renders all other capital ships obsolete with revolutionary design.

Preliminary bombardments

1942:a Japanese submarine launches a brutal attack on Midway, a coral atoll used as a U.S. Navy base. It was the fourth bombing of the atoll by Japanese ships since December 7. Details are a little slim: 2/8/42 Japanese submarine I-69 shelled Sand Island, Midway Atoll, causing minor damage to the radio towers. US Marine Buffalo aircraft of VMF 221 squadron counterattacked and damaged I-69. 2/10/42: A Japanese submarine fired two rounds at American installations at Midway Atoll and then was chased away by aircraft of Marine Fighter Squadron 221. These attacks were preliminary to the climactic Battle of Midway later in June of 1942....

1531 - Henry VIII recognised as supreme head of Church in England following the schism with Rome.

2013 - North Korea confirms it has successfully tested a nuclear device that could be weaponized.

1942 - Hitler's Operation Sealion (invasion of England) cancelled.

Dresden.

No further words needed.

1861: The first military action to be honored with the Medal of Honor is performed. Colonel Bernard J.D. Irwin, an assistant army surgeon serving in the first major U.S.-Apache conflict. Near Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona. Irwin, volunteered to go to the rescue of Second Lieutenant George N. Bascom, who was trapped with 60 men of the U.S. Seventh Infantry by the Chiricahua Apaches. Irwin and 14 men, initially without horses, began the 100-mile trek to Bascom's forces riding on mules, arriving a day later and breaking the siege. Irwin's bravery in this conflict was the earliest Medal of Honor action, the award itself was not created until 1862, and it was not until January 21, 1894, that Irwin received the nation's highest military honor. His son and grandson graduated from West Point and served in WWI and WWII as a Major General and Lieutenant General respectively! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._J_D_Irwin.jpgBernard J.D. Irwin; Brigadier General(ret) service 1856-1894 WIKI

1797 - The Battle of Cape St Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself.

399 - Philosopher Socrates sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth and of impiety.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimbuna (Post 2287861)

399 - Philosopher Socrates sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth and of impiety.

I'll take a little hemlock with that parrhesia ...and a Hamm's chaser BBY! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parrhesia :smug: :know: :shifty: :dead:

On the nature of wretched gunboat diplomacy

1898: The poorly armored, under powered and obsolete cruiser, USS Maine blows up in Havana Harbor killing 260 of 400 aboard. The explosion is assumed to be the work of saboteurs (a mine) and the Spanish-American War is ON! The New York Journal and New York World, owned respectively by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, gave the Maine intense press coverage, but employed tactics that would later be labeled "yellow journalism" Both papers exaggerated and distorted any information they could attain, sometimes even fabricating news; fanning American rage and indignation. We acquired a useless empire (the Philippines) and numerous other headaches to plague us to the present day...including Fidel Castro's Cuba and the Philippines's Ferdinand Marcos. ADM Rickover of nuclear navy fame also conducted an extensive investigation in 1978 of all factors related to the explosion. Conclusion: a spontaneous coal bunker fire probably ignited a thin-walled amunition magazine the Rickover study. Up to the time of the Maine 's building, he explains, common bulkheads separated coal bunkers from ammunition lockers and American naval ships burned primarily smokeless anthracite coal. With an increase in the number of steel ships, the U.S. Navy switched to bituminous coal, which burned at a hotter temperature than anthracite coal, and allowed ships to steam faster. However, while anthracite coal is not subject to spontaneous combustion, bituminous coal is considerably more volatile. In fact, bituminous coal is known for releasing the largest amounts of firedamp, a dangerous and explosive mixture of gases. Firedamp is explosive at concentrations between 4% and 16%, with most violence at around 10%. A number of bunker fires had, in fact, been reported aboard U.S. warships before the Maine 's explosion, in several cases nearly sinking the ships. A 1997 heat transfer study which concluded that a coal bunker fire, of the type suggested by Rickover, could have taken place and ignited the ship's ammunition. WIKI http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...osion_1898.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)

1659 - 1st known cheque (£400) (on display at Westminster Abbey).