This date in history

[Aktungbby]

1862 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg], bloodiest day in the American Civil War 23,110 die in first battle on Union soil.

To say that it was union territory is a bit of a misnomer. Maryland was a 'slave state' with strong Southern leanings...however the long border with decidedly northern Pennsylvania, deemed indefensible, gave pause to outright joining the Confederacy by 'sensible' Maryland politicos. Similary afflicted, West Virginia would be forged out of Virginia's decidedly pro union counties creating a separate state.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland_in_the_American_Civil_War The actual butcher's bill at Antietam breaks down thusly: 22,717 dead, wounded, or missing. The Union had 12,410 casualties with 2,108 dead. Confederate casualties were 10,316 with 1,546 dead This represented 25% of the Federal force and 31% of the Confederate. Of the other casualties, 1,910 Union and 1,550 Confederate troops died of their wounds soon after the battle, while 225 Union and 306 Confederate troops listed as missing were later confirmed as dead.<The disastrous bloody Lane Imho: The thin victory is the actual turning point of the Civil War. Lincoln used it to issue the Emancipation Proclamation; focusing the moral and political aspect of the conflict thus preventing the Confederacy from gaining useful European economic allies from European nations with rising worker-political movements in a perceived 'war against slavery'... The political masterstroke of his career: Money is the $inew$ of war which is itself 'politics by other means'-Lincoln solved both the economic and political/moral issue at a single stroke. Lee's second march north??!!, in 1863, would end at Gettysburg, Penn...a disastrous finishing stroke initiating two year's more misery of retreats and seigecraft, finally ending at Appomattox.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1862 Battle of Antietam [Battle of Sharpsburg], bloodiest day in the American Civil War 23,110 die in first battle on Union soil.

I wonder how many women gave up on their husband coming home thinking that their husband was dead and never coming home, going on and marring another man.

Hey! That would make a great movie ...

Oh, I left out that he comes home ...

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

I wonder how many women gave up on their husband coming home thinking that their husband was dead and never coming home, going on and marring another man.

Hey! That would make a great movie ...

Oh, I left out that he comes home ...

Problem solved BBY where do you think the modern embalming practice got it's start?

In the accompanying photo Dr. Richard Burr, an embalming surgeon, is performing the embalming process on a soldier recovered from the battlefield. During the early years of the American Civil War, a new profession began to emerge. Some short time before the War was declared in 1861, Dr. Thomas Holmes, had developed a process by which a liquid could be injected into the body to preserve it for an extended period of time. The veins would be pumped full of this liquid to arrest and prevent decay thus making it possible to ship the body home. As officers and soldiers were killed in battle, more and more families wanted their loved one returned home for a funeral service and burial. With the new embalming process this became possible, expensive though it was. As families were able to raise the money, or soldiers had items of value to prepay for their own embalmment and shipment home, the undertaker would search the battlefields and hospitals hoping to find the body for whom they had contracted. They had never had so much work as was represented by the bureaucracy necessary to rebury the dead, with more than 300,000 Union soldiers ( from a total of approx. 600,000 war dead-mostly from disease??!!) relocated and buried in national cemeteries. That was an enormous logistical undertaking. And the pension system that was set up to take care of the relatives required a level of engagement in the lives of citizens and bureaucracy that didn't exist. Before, the government was very small.

Required reading: Naturally, proper funeral Victorian etiquette, fashion, and finance clashed given the astronomical death rate:

Etiquette books recommended that mothers mourn a child for one year, a child mourn a parent for one year, and siblings mourn for six months. Widowers mourned for only three months by wearing armbands, badges, or rosettes of black fabric. Widows, however, were expected to respect a minimum two and a half years in mourning. In the period immediately following the death of her husband, a wife embarked on heavy-mourning, in which she was compelled to wear only black clothing and to keep her face concealed with a black, crepe veil when she left her home. This was followed by full-mourning, during which she continued to don black garments and a veil, but lighter shades of lace and cuffs were allowed to adorn her outfit. The final stage, half-mourning, permitted the widow to wear solid-colored fabrics of lavender, gray, and some purples. With as many as one out of every four Confederate soldiers dying, women across the region were thrown into a perpetual state of mourning and often forced to abandon their rituals of dress and self-imposed seclusion.

Bottom line: Chemicals or couture the industry of death in the Civil War was about lookin' good & proper! http://historiccamdencounty.com/ccnews43.shtml

[Jimbuna]

1812 Great Fire of Moscow burns out after 5 day, 75% of the city destroyed and 12,000 killed.

1939 William Joyce's first Nazi propaganda broadcast.

1942 The order for 'extermination asocials through labour' is approved by Otto Thierack, Nazi minister of justice.

1944 British submarine Tradewind torpedoes Junyo Maru: 5,600 killed, including 1,377 allied PoWs and 4,200 Javanese slave labourers.

[Jimbuna]

1939 British navy captures German U-27.

1943 Liberator bomber sinks U-338.

1990 Both East and West Germany ratify reunification.

[Jimbuna]

1944 Last British paratroopers at bridge of Arnhem surrender.

1949 Chinese Communist leaders proclaim People's Republic of China.

1954 1st nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, commissioned under Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson.

[Mr Quatro]

September 21,1951 - GANDHI'S SON BOOKED FOR SITTING ON BENCH RESERVED FOR EUROPEANS

Manilal Gandhi, second son of Mohandas Gandhi, is informed by a police sergeant that a summons will be issued against him for sitting on a bench reserved
"For Europeans Only" at the main railway station in Durban, South Africa.

[Jimbuna]

1938 British premier Neville Chamberlain flies to Munich.

1941 General de Gaulle forms government in exile in London.

1941 German air raid on Russian naval base at Kronstadt (battleship Marat sinks).

1941 The first gas murder experiments are conducted at Auschwitz. concentration camp.

1942 Russian counter offensive at Stalingrad.

1942 Transport nr 36 departs with French Jews to nazi-Germany.

1942 The 'Manhattan Project' commences, under the direction of US General Leslie Groves: its aim - to deliver an atomic bomb.

[Jimbuna]

1940 Luftwaffe bombs Spitfire factory in Southampton.

1948 Mildred Gillars (Axis Sally), an American broadcaster employed by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany to proliferate propaganda during World War II, pleads not guilty to eight chargs of treason in Washington, D.C.

1960 USS Enterprise, 1st nuclear power aircraft carrier, launched.

[Jimbuna]

1066 Battle of Stamford Bridge; English army under King Harold Godwinson defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig, who were both killed.

1915 Battle of Loos commenced, lasted until 14th October. Chlorine gas deployed by the British was blown back into their own trenches: 59,000 British & 26,000 German casualties.

1939 Andorra and Germany sign a treaty ending WW I, as Versailles Peace Treaty forgot to include Andorra.

1956 First transatlantic telephone cable goes into operation from Newfoundland to Oban.

1976 Bono, David Evans, his brother Dik and Adam Clayton respond to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band, which would eventually become U2.

[Mr Quatro]

Least we should forget that one this day a 59 year old pitcher pitched three innings ... becoming the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...-three-innings

On September 25, 1965, the Kansas City Athletics start ageless wonder Satchel Paige in a game against the Boston Red Sox. The 59-year-old Paige, a Negro League legend, proved his greatness once again by giving up only one hit in his three innings of play.

Leroy Page was born on July 7, 1906, in Mobile, Alabama. Page’s family changed the spelling of their name to Paige to differentiate themselves from John Page, Leroy’s absent and abusive father. “Satchel” got his nickname as a boy while working as a luggage carrier at the Mobile train station. When he was 12, his constant truancy coupled with a shoplifting incident got him sent to the Industrial School for Negro Children in Mount Meigs, Alabama. It turned out to be a lucky break, as it was there that Paige learned to pitch. After leaving the school, he turned pro.

From 1927 to 1948 Paige served as the baseball equivalent of a hired gun: He pitched for any team in the United States or abroad that could afford him. He was the highest paid pitcher of his time, and he wowed crowds with the speed of his fastball, his trick pitches and his considerable bravado. Just for fun, Paige would sometimes call in his outfield and then strike out the side. From 1939 to 1942, the Kansas City Monarchs paid up for his services and were justly rewarded: Paige led the team to four consecutive Negro American League pennants from 1939 to 1942. In the 1942 Negro League World Series, Satchel won three games in a four-game sweep of the Homestead Grays, led by famed slugger Josh Gibson.

Paige’s contract was bought by Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians on July 7, 1948, his 42nd birthday. He made his major league debut two days later, entering in the fifth inning against the St. Louis Browns with the Indians trailing 4-1. He gave up two singles in two innings, striking one man out and inducing one batter to hit into a double play. The Indians lost the game 5-3 in spite of Paige’s contribution. That year Satchel Paige went 6-1 with a solid 2.48 ERA for the World Champion Cleveland Indians and was named to Major League Baseball’s All-Star Team for the American League in 1952 and 1953, when he was 46 and 47 years old respectively.

On September 25, 1965, Paige’s three innings for the Kansas City Athletics made him, at 59 years, 2 months and 18 days, the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues. Before the game, Paige sat in the bullpen in a rocking chair while a nurse rubbed liniment into his pitching arm for the entire crowd to see. Any doubts about Paige’s ability were put to rest when he set down each of the Red Sox batters he faced except for Carl Yastremski, who hit a double.

Arguably the greatest pitcher of his era, Paige was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1066 Battle of Stamford Bridge; English army under King Harold Godwinson defeat invading Norwegians led by King Harald Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig, who were both killed.




1976 Bono, David Evans, his brother Dik and Adam Clayton respond to an advertisement on a bulletin board at Mount Temple posted by fellow student Larry Mullen Jr. to form a rock band, which would eventually become U2.

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Least we should forget that one this day a 59 year old pitcher pitched three innings ... becoming the oldest pitcher ever to play a game in the major leagues: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...-three-innings

JEEZE! Three immortals in this fabulous thread!
Forget the two colorful Harolds! : A giant Norse berserker silently surveyed the Saxon army, firmly clutching a massive double-bladed greataxe in his weathered, calloused hands. A lone Viking hero granted permission by his King to die honorably in combat, tasked with defending the Stamford narrow bridge and buying time for his brethren to reorganize."But there was one of the Norwegians who withstood the English folk, so that they could not pass over the bridge, nor complete the victory." The immortal Satchel Paige who became a legend in his own lifetime by being known as perhaps the best pitcher in baseball history, by his longevity in the game 1924-1966, and by attracting record crowds wherever he pitched. Satchel's mother, Lula, would even comment on how Satchel would rather "play baseball than eat. It was always baseball, baseball... And of course fabulous public good/activist oriented U2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U2 and their seventh album ACHTUNG BABY! Track one: Zoo Station All in all: for a Norwegian college grad, baseball (Giants)fanatic & diehard U2 buff, a fabulous Sunday!

[Jimbuna]

1580 Frances Drake completes circumnavigation of the world, sailing into Plymouth aboard the Golden Hind.

1938 Hitler issues ultimatum to Czech government, demanding Sudenten Land.

1940 Luftwaffe bombs Spitfire factory in Southampton for second time.

1983 Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov averts a worldwide nuclear war by judging supposed missile attack from the US an error.

[Jimbuna]

1939 Warsaw surrenders to Germans after 19 days of resistance.

1941 US launches its 1st Liberty ship, freighter SS Patrick Henry.

1942 Reinhard Heydrich, "butcher of Prague," appointed SS-general (Gruppenfuehrer).

1968 France denies UK entry into common market.

1991 US President George H. W. Bush decides to end full-time B-52 bombers alert.

[Aktungbby]

1991 US President George H. W. Bush decides to end full-time B-52 bombers alert.

A pity I'm not the President. Undoing that decision would be my first official act as commander in chief; what with Russia, China and North Korea jerking our chain these days-still out on Iran Von C's maxim:"whenever possible increase firepower" meets the Russian:"numbers(of B-52's) have a cachet of their own"
The only active operational model of the B-52 is the B-52H. It is currently stationed at two USAF bases, flown by(only) three wings:

• 2d Bomb Wing - Barksdale AFB, Louisiana

11th Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: LA, Gold Tail Stripe) 20th Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: LA, Blue Tail Stripe) 96th Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: LA, Red Tail Stripe)

• 5th Bomb Wing - Minot AFB, North Dakota

23d Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: MT, Red Tail Stripe) 69th Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: MT, Yellow Tail Stripe)

• 307th Bomb Wing (AFRC) - Barksdale AFB, Louisiana

93d Bomb Squadron (B-52H, Tail Code: BD, Blue/Gold Chex Tail Stripe) 343d Bomb Squadron

Originally Posted by Forbes

The need to sustain such a fleet is dictated not only by the role America has assumed as guarantor of global security, but also by the geographical reality that vast oceans separate the U.S. from the rest of the world. It can take warships weeks to traverse such distances, but bombers can get pretty much anywhere in a day. And unlike ballistic missiles, they can be recalled or retargeted en routeToday, the Air Force only has about 160 heavy bombers left to cover the whole world — 76 B-52 Stratofortresses, 63 B-1 Lancers, and 20 B-2 Spirits. Furthermore, on any given day many of them are not ready for combat; they are having on-board equipment replaced, or conducting training missions, or awaiting maintenance. So the actual number of heavy bombers ready to go right now in a crisis is only about a hundred. They’re remarkably resilient and versatile aircraft, but imagine trying to sustain an air campaign on short notice against China for many months with barely a hundred planes — while also covering all the other military commitments America has around the world.

We seriously need to revamp some of the Historic B-52 units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_B-52_Units_of_the_United_States_Air_Force