This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1879 Zulu warriors attack British Army camp in Isandhlwana, South Africa.

1879 Battle of Rorke's Drift: British garrison of 150 holds off 3,000-4,000 Zulu warriors. Eleven Victoria Crosses and a number of other decorations were awarded to the defenders.

[Jimbuna]

1904 Ålesund Fire: the Norwegian coastal town Ålesund is devastated by fire, leaving 10,000 people homeless and one person dead. Kaiser Wilhelm II funds the rebuilding of the town in Jugendstil style.

1920 Dutch refuse to turn over ex-Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany to allies.

1945 World War II: Karl Dönitz launches Operation Hannibal.

1960 Bathosphere "Trieste", crewed by Jacques Piccard and US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, reaches bottom of Pacific (10,900 m)

1962 British intelligence officer Kim Philby defects to USSR.

1968 Spy ship USS Pueblo and 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Korea.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1879 Zulu warriors attack British Army camp in Isandhlwana,

unmitigated disaster #1 by overwhelming numbers...

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1968 Spy ship USS Pueblo and 83-man crew seized in Sea of Japan by North Korea.

unmitigated disaster #2 by overwhelming numbers...resulting in compromised Navy communications for decades (Walker spy ring)and the USS Pueblo is still a trophy on display in the N. KOREA....in the vicinity of the USS General Sherman incident sinking with looss of all crewmen...nuthin' goes outta style in the DPRK! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Sherman_incident

[Jimbuna]

41 Claudius succeeds his nephew Caligula as Roman Emperor after the later's assassination by officers of the Praetorian Guard.

1943 Adolf Hitler orders German troops at Stalingrad to fight to the death.

1943 Jewish patients, nurses and doctors incinerated at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

1958 After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, two light atoms are bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in first man-made nuclear fusion.

1972 Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been since the end of World War II.

2019 17 temperature records broken in South Australia including highest ever recorded for capital Adelaide at 46.6C

[Aktungbby]

1935:beer is first sold in cans in Richmond Virginia, by the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company!
Ya really can't have a proper 'sixpack' unless it's in cans!??

[Jimbuna]

1940 Nazi decrees establishment of Jewish ghetto in Lodz Poland.

1955 Russia ends state of war with Germany.

1969 US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris.

1971 Military coup in Uganda under Major General Idi Amin.

1974 Dr Christiaan Barnard transplants first heterotopic heart transplant (adding donor heart without removal of old).

1980 Highest speed attained by a warship, 167 kph, USN hovercraft.

1981 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived back in US.

[Jimbuna]

1788 Captain Arthur Phillip and British colonists hoist the Union Flag at Sydney Cove, New South Wales, now celebrated as Australia Day.

1907 The Short Magazine Lee-Enfield Mk III rifle officially introduced into British Military Service, 2nd oldest military rifle still in official use.

1932 British submarine M-2 sinks in English Channel (60 dead).

1942 First US force in Europe during WW II go ashore in Northern Ireland.

1942 Italian supreme command demands dismissal of German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

1945 Soviet forces reach Auschwitz concentration camp.

1968 Israeli submarine Dakar sinks in Mediterranean Sea, 69 die.

1998 President Bill Clinton says "I want to say one thing to the American people; I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky"

[Aktungbby]

1945: AUDIE MURPHY IS PROMOTED TO COMPANY COMMANDER AND EARNS THE CONGRESSIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR HOLDING OFF A GERMAN ADVANCE ATOP A BURNING TANK DESTROYER FOR AN HOUR, MANNING A .50 CALIBER MACHINE-GUN AND INFLICTING 50 CASUALTIES.

As the company awaited reinforcements on 26 January, he was made commander of Company B.
The Germans scored a direct hit on an M10 tank destroyer, setting it alight, forcing the crew to abandon it. Murphy ordered his men to retreat to positions in the woods, remaining alone at his post, shooting his M1 carbine and directing artillery fire via his field radio while the Germans aimed fire directly at his position. Murphy mounted the abandoned, burning tank destroyer and began firing its .50 caliber machine gun at the advancing Germans, killing a squad crawling through a ditch towards him. For an hour, Murphy stood on the flaming tank destroyer returning German fire from foot soldiers and advancing tanks, killing or wounding 50 Germans. He sustained a leg wound during his stand, and stopped only after he ran out of ammunition. Murphy rejoined his men, disregarding his own injury, and led them back to repel the Germans. He insisted on remaining with his men while his wounds were treated.
For his actions that day, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.

[Jimbuna]

1944 Siege of Leningrad lifted by the Soviets after 880 days and more than 2 million Russians killed.

1945 Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland.

1973 US & North Vietnam's William Rogers & Nguyen Duy Trinh sign cease-fire, ending longest US war and military draft.

[Jimbuna]

1915 First US ship lost in WW I, William P Frye (carrying wheat to UK)

1942 WW II Navy flier Don Mason sends message "Sighted sub sank same"

1944 683 British bombers attack Berlin.

1944 U-271 & U-571 sunk off Ireland.

1945 General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell and truck convoy reopen Burma Road to China.

1958 The Lego company patents their design of Lego bricks, still compatible with bricks produced today.

1968 Radiation alert following B-52 crash in Arctic air base of Thule in Greenland.

1980 USCGC Blackthorn (WLB-391) collides with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa Florida and capsizes killing 23 Coast Guard crewmembers.

1986 Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral, with all 7 crew members killed, including Christa McAuliffe who was to be the first teacher in space.

[Jimbuna]

1856 Victoria Cross established to acknowledge valour in the face of the enemy (United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries)

1917 British submarine K13 sank in Gaire Loch, Scotland; 32 of her crew died.

1943 New Zealand cruiser Kiwi collides with Japanese submarine I-1 at Guadalcanal.

1943 U.S. cruiser "Chicago" is heavily damaged by Japanese bombers on the first day of the Battle of Rennell Island.

1944 285 German bombers attack London.

1944 USS Missouri, the last battleship commissioned by the US Navy, is launched.

1980 6 Iranian-held US hostages escape with help of Canadians.

2002 US President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address describes "regimes that sponsor terror" an "Axis of Evil", which includes Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

[Jimbuna]

1661 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England is ritually executed after having been dead for two years.

1835 Richard Lawrence misfires at President Andrew Jackson in Washington, D.C. in first attempted assassination of a US President.

1862 USS Monitor, the US Navy's first ironclad warship launched.

1895 SS Elbe sinks after collision in North Sea, 332 killed.

1933 President Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Reich Chancellor of Germany who forms a government with Franz von Papen.

1933 After Paul von Hindenburg appoints Adolf Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, his former WWI colleague General Erich Ludendorff sends a letter to him stating "this accursed man will cast our Reich into the abyss and bring our nation to inconceivable misery"

1939 Adolf Hitler threatens Jews during his speech to the German Reichstag (Parliament)

1943 6 British Mosquitos bomb Berlin in daylight.

1943 Adolf Hitler promotes Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, to Field Marshal in the hope that he will not surrender.

1943 USS Chicago sinks in Pacific Ocean.

1945 "Wilhelm Gustloff" torpedoed off Danzig by Soviet sub-c 9,400 die.

1945 American Rangers and Filipino resistance fighters liberate over 500 Allied POWs from Japanese at Cabanatuan.

1965 State Funeral of Winston Churchill at St Paul's Cathedral in London. Then world's largest ever state funeral.

1969 The Beatles perform their last live gig, a 42 minute concert on the roof of Apple Corps HQ in London.

1972 Bloody Sunday: 27 unarmed civilians are shot (14 are killed) by the British Army during a civil rights march in Derry, Northern Ireland; this is the highest death toll from a single shooting incident during 'the Troubles'

[Jimbuna]

1915 1st (German) poison gas attack, against Russians.

1917 Germany notifies US that U-boats will attack neutral merchant ships.

1918 A series of accidental collisions on a misty Scottish night leads to the loss of two Royal Navy submarines with over a hundred lives, and damage to another five British warships.

1933 Adolf Hitler promises parliamentary democracy.

1943 Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrenders to Soviet troops at Stalingrad.

1950 US President Harry Truman publicly announces support for the development of a hydrogen bomb.

1985 South African President P. W. Botha offers to free Nelson Mandela if he denounces violence.

[Jimbuna]

1587 Queen Elizabeth I of England signs death warrant for her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots.

1861 Texas secedes from the Union (which precipitates the American Civil War)

1917 German Großadmiral Alfred von Tirpitz announces unlimited submarine war.

1933 German Parliament is dissolved by President Paul von Hindenburg by the request of new chancellor Adolf Hitler.

1942 Second Norwegian government of Quisling forms.

1943 German occupiers make Vidkun Quisling Norwegian premier.

1958 Manchester United beats Arsenal, 5-4 at Highbury in the team's last game on British soil, 5 days prior to the plane crash at Munich airport that killed 7 players.

1968 Saigon police chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executes Viet Cong officer Nguyễn Văn Lém with a pistol shot to head. The execution is captured by photographer Eddie Adams and becomes an anti-war icon.

2003 Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

[Jimbuna]

1653 New Amsterdam becomes a city (later renamed New York)

1709 British sailor Alexander Selkirk is rescued by William Dampier after being marooned on a desert island for 5 years, his story inspires "Robinson Crusoe"

1901 Queen Victoria's Funeral takes place in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, England.

1944 Allied troops first set foot on Japanese territory.

1954 President Eisenhower reports detonation of 1st H-bomb (done in 1952)

1974 The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.