This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1863 Naval engagement near Galveston between CSS Alabama & USS Hatteras.

1920 French passenger ship Afrique sinks near La Rochelle; 553 die.

1964 First government report by US Surgeon General Luther Terry warning that smoking may be hazardous.

[Jimbuna]

1816 France decrees Bonaparte family excluded from the country forever.

1913 After using other pseudonyms over the years, Josef Dzhugashvili signs himself as Stalin ("man of steel") in a letter to the newspaper Social Democrat.

1916 Max Immelmann and Oswald Boelcke receive the Pour le Merite, the German Empire's highest military award, for achieving eight aerial victories each over Allied aircraft.

1945 German forces in Belgium retreat in Battle of Bulge.

1945 US Task Force 38 destroys 41 Japanese ships in Battle of South China Sea.

1962 Operation Ranch Hand begins, a US Air Force operation to spray South Vietnamese forests with defoliants such as Agent Orange.

[Jimbuna]

1908 Henri Farman becomes the first person to fly an observed circuit of more than 1km, winning the Grand Prix d'Aviation.

1915 Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, presents plan for assault on Dardanelles.

1923 Taking advantage of the chaotic condition of Germany, Hitler stages a demonstration of 5000 storm troopers and denounces the 'November crime'

1939 The Black Friday bush fires burn 20,000 square kilometres of land in Australia, claiming the lives of 71 people.

1942 German U-boats begin harassing shipping on US east coast.

1942 World War II: First use of aircraft ejection seat by a German test pilot in a Heinkel He 280 jet fighter.

1943 Adolf Hitler declares "Total War" against the Allies.

[Jimbuna]

1784 US Revolutionary War ends with the US Congress of the Confederation ratifying the Treaty of Paris.

1943 Japan begins Operation Ke, withdrawal of its troops from Guadalcanal.

1943 World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt travels from Miami to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill, becoming the first American president to travel by airplane.

1943 World War II: Casablanca Conference begins between Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1960 US Army promotes Elvis Presley to Sergeant.

1969 25 members of US aircraft carrier Enterprise die during maneuvers.

[Jimbuna]

1559 Elizabeth I crowned Queen of England in Westminster Abbey.

1870 Donkey first used as symbol of Democratic Party, in Harper's Weekly.

1943 1st transport of Jews from Amsterdam to concentration camp Vught.

1943 World's largest office building, the Pentagon is completed to house the US military.

1944 Vught Concentration Camp puts 74 women in 1 cell, 10 die.

2001 Wikipedia a free Wiki or content encyclopedia is launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger.

[Aktungbby]

1919: Around lunchtime on the afternoon of January 15, 1919, a giant tank of molasses burst open in Boston’s North End. More than two million gallons of thick liquid poured out like a tsunami wave, reaching speeds of up to 35 miles per hour. The molasses flooded streets, crushed buildings and trapped horses in an event that ultimately killed 21 people and injured 150 more. The smell of molasses lingered for decades. REASONS: Among them: flawed steel, safety oversights, fluctuating air temperatures and the principles of fluid dynamics- ALL CAPPED BY CORPORATE GREED. https://www.history.com/news/great-molasses-flood-science <CLIK 2 ENLARGE) BEFORE>AFTER>

 

Several factors might have contributed to the disaster. The tank was constructed poorly and tested insufficiently, and carbon dioxide production might have raised the internal pressure due to fermentation in the tank. Warmer weather the previous day would have assisted in building this pressure, as the air temperature rose from 2 to 41 °F (−17 to 5.0 °C) over that period. The failure occurred from a manhole cover near the base of the tank, and a fatigue crack there possibly grew to the point of criticality.
The tank had been filled to capacity only eight times since it was built a few years previously, putting the walls under an intermittent, cyclical load. Several authors say that the Purity Distilling Company was trying to out-race prohibition,as the 18th amendment (CORPORATE GREED!) was ratified the next day (January 16, 1919) and took effect one year later.An inquiry after the disaster revealed that Arthur Jell, USIA's treasurer, neglected basic safety tests while overseeing construction of the tank, such as filling it with water insufficient to check for leaks, and ignored warning signs such as groaning noises each time the tank was filled. He had no architectural or engineering experience. When filled with molasses, the tank leaked so badly that it was painted brown to hide them. Local residents collected leaked molasses for their homes. A 2014 investigation applied modern engineering analysis and found that the steel was half as thick as it should have been for a tank of its size, even with the lax standards of the day, and it also lacked manganese and was made more brittle as a result.. The tank's rivets were also apparently flawed, and cracks first formed at the rivet holes.
In 2016, a team of scientists and students at Harvard University conducted extensive studies of the disaster, gathering data from many sources, including 1919 newspaper articles, old maps, and weather reports. The student researchers also studied the behavior of cold corn syrup flooding a scale model of the affected neighborhood. The researchers concluded that the reports of the high speed of the flood were credible.Two days before the disaster, warmer molasses had been added to the tank, reducing the viscosity of the fluid. When the tank collapsed, the fluid cooled quickly as it spread, until it reached Boston's winter evening temperatures and the viscosity increased dramatically. The Harvard study concluded that the molasses cooled and thickened quickly as it rushed through the streets, (EST: 35 MPH??!!) hampering efforts to free victims before they suffocated.

[Jimbuna]

1917 "Zimmermann Telegram" is sent from Germany to Mexico, stating in the event of the US entering World War I on the allied side, Mexico would be given Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. Intercepted by British intelligence and partially deciphered by the next day. It's release in March shifts US public opinion in favour of war against Germany.

1920 1st assembly of the League of Nations is held in Paris.

1943 Red Army recaptures Pitomnik airport at Stalingrad.

1944 General Eisenhower takes command of Allied Invasion Force in London.

1945 Adolf Hitler moves into the Fuhrerbunker, his underground bunker in Berlin.

1957 Three B-52s leave California for first non-stop round world flights.

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1912 :A day before reaching the South Pole, Robert Scott and his expedition found evidence tha Roald Amundsen of Norway had gotten there first...I know they were cold but I know they had to be pissed-off too.

[Jeff-Groves]

1920 Prohibition takes effect stopping the sale and consumption of alcohol when the 18th Amendment went into effect.

This would be the beginning of some of the most powerful Crime Organizations
in the U.S.A.
The exception to that would be the Military Complex.

[Jimbuna]

1779 Captain James Cook's last notation in Discovery's ship's log.

1912 Captain Robert Scott's expedition arrives at the South Pole, one month after Roald Amundsen.

1944 British corvette HMS Violet sinks U-641 in Atlantic Ocean.

1945 Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation.

1955 US Submarine Nautilus begins first nuclear-powered test voyage.

1991 Operation Desert Storm begins, with US-led coalition forces bombing Iraq, during the Gulf War.

[Jimbuna]

1788 First elements of the First Fleet carrying 736 convicts from England to Australia arrives at Botany Bay to set up a penal colony.

1911 First shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania).

1919 The Paris peace conference (aka the Versailles peace conference) opens to draw up the treaties formally ending the Great War (WWI)

1945 Soviet Armed Forces enter Krakow, Poland and push Germans out, only to eventually occupy entire country.

1957 3 B-52's set record for around-the-world flight, 45 hr 19 min.

1962 US begins spraying foliage in Vietnam to reveal Viet Cong guerrillas.

1973 John Cleese's final episode on "Monty Python's Flying Circus" on BBC TV

1981 Iran accepts US offer of $7.9 billion in frozen assets.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1911 First shipboard landing of a plane (Tanforan Park to USS Pennsylvania).

EUGENE ELY HAD ALSO DONE THE FIRST TAKEOFF FROM A SHIP NOV 14 1910
CIRCUIT COMPLETE: NAVAL CARRIER WARFARE IS THEORETICALLY POSSIBLE!

[Jimbuna]

1915 World War I: 4 people in Norfolk are killed in the first German Zeppelin air raid attack on the United Kingdom.

1923 UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Stanley Baldwin and US Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon agree to reschedule repayment of Britain's $4.5 billion war debt over 62 years.

1940 The Three Stooges film "You Nazty Spy!" about the Nazis released with the disclaimer "Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle."

1971 The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" is played at Charles Manson trial.

[Jimbuna]

1841 China cedes Hong Kong to the British during the first Opium War.

1879 British troops under Lord Chelmsford make camp at Isandlwana.

1921 British submarine HMS K5 (which was unusually equipped with steam turbines) sinks with 57 crew during exercises in the Bay of Biscay.

1942 Nazi officials hold notorious Wannsee Conference in Berlin to organize the "final solution", the extermination of Europe's Jews.

1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn-in for an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) fourth term as US President.

1981 The US diplomats and citizens held hostage at the US embassy in Tehran are released and begin their journey home after 444 days.

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1919 Irish militant nationalist party Sinn Fein creates its own parliament in Dublin and declares Ireland independent of Great Britain, sparking the Irish War of Independence.

1934 Parisian baker and "student of medieval life" Henri Littière appears in court charged with forcing his adulterous wife Juliette to wear a chastity belt. Having committed the same offence in 1932, he was sentenced to three months in prison and fined 50 francs for cruelty to his wife.

1943 Soviet forces reconquer Gumrak airport near Stalingrad.

1943 Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham, Royal Navy, promoted to Admiral of the Fleet.

1944 447 German bombers attack London.

1944 649 British bombers attack Magdeburg.

1954 USS Nautilus, the first nuclear-powered submarine, launched on the Thames River in Connecticut.

1968 US B-52 bomber with nuclear bomb on board crashes in Greenland.

1976 Supersonic Concorde has its first commercial flights.

1977 US President Jimmy Carter pardons almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.