This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1842 Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for (reputedly) being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

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

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 Hitler declares "Total War"

2000 Microsoft chairman Bill Gates steps aside as chief executive and promotes company president Steve Ballmer to the position.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1842 Dr. William Brydon, a surgeon in the British Army during the First Anglo-Afghan War, becomes famous for (reputedly) being the sole survivor of an army of 16,500 when he reaches the safety of a garrison in Jalalabad.

Part of his skull had been sheared off by an Afghan sword and he survived only because he had stuffed a copy of Blackwood's Magazine into his hat to fight the intense cold weather. The magazine took most of the blow, saving the doctor's life. Brydon became widely, if inaccurately, known as being the only survivor of the entire army. In fact, he was not the only European to survive the retreat; about 115 British officers, soldiers, wives and children were captured or taken as hostages and survived to be subsequently released...The episode was made the subject of a famous painting by the Victorian artist Lady Butler, who portrayed Brydon approaching the gates of the Jalalabad fort perched on his exhausted horse (which reportedly dropped dead upon arrival in the city).Lady Butler's other famous painting imho:< klik 2 enlarge) Scotland Forever!

[Jimbuna]

1942 Japanese troops land at oil center Balikpapan in Borneo.

1943 Heinrich Himmler views Warsaw.

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

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

1960 US Army promoted 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.

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

1951 Ilse Koch, also known as "The Bitch of Buchenwald", is sentenced to life imprisonment by a West German court.

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

[Jimbuna]

1941 US vice admiral Bellinger warns of an assault on Pearl Harbor.

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

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

1957 3 B-52s leave California for first non-stop round world flights.

1957 Cavern Club opens on Matthews Street in Liverpool, England, home of The Beatles' first appearance.

[Jimbuna]

1773 Captain James Cook becomes first to cross Antarctic Circle (66° 33' S).

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

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

1945 Auschwitz concentration camp begins evacuation.

1945 Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, credited with saving tens of thousands of Jews from the Nazis, arrested by Soviet secret police in Hungary.

1951 China refuses ceases-fire in Korea.

1955 US Submarine Nautilus begins 1st nuclear-powered test voyage.

1987 US President Reagan signs secret order permitting covert sale of arms to Iran.

[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.

1884 General Charles Gordon departs London for Khartoum.

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

2016 World's 62 richest people are now as wealthy as half the world's population according to a report published by Oxfam.

[Jimbuna]

1915 First German Zeppelin attack over Great Britain, 4 die.

1939 Ernest Hausen of Wisconsin sets chicken-plucking record of 4.4 seconds.

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

[Aktungbby]

1942:German submarine U-66 sank RMS Lady Hawkins in the North Atlantic, killing 251 of the 322 people aboard.

On the morning of 19 January 1942 the ship was sailing unescorted about 150 nautical miles (280 km) off Cape Hatteras, taking a zigzag course to make her more difficult to hit, when at 0743 hrs U-66 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Robert-Richard Zapp ( 27th highest scoring U-Boat ace of World War II) hit her with two stern-launched torpedoes. The liner sank in about 30 minutes.Three of her six lifeboats were damaged, but the other three were launched. One was commanded by her Chief Officer. It had capacity for 63 people but managed to embark 76 survivors. Its occupants could hear more people in the water, but could neither see them in the dark nor take them aboard the overcrowded boat if they had found them.
The boat had no radio transmitter and very limited rations of drinking water, biscuit and water. It shipped water and needed constant baling, but it had a mast, sail and oars and Chief Officer Percy Kelly set a course west toward the USA's Atlantic coast sea lanes and land. The boat was at sea for five days, in which time five of its occupants died. Then the survivors sighted the US ArmytroopshipUSAT Coamo and signalled her with a flashlight. Coamo's Master misread the flashes as an enemy submarine preparing to attack, and was going to continue without stopping. It was only when the survivors shone the light on the boat's sail that he correctly understood their signal. Coamo rescued the boat's 71 surviving occupants, landing them at Puerto Rico on 28 January. Of the three lifeboats launched, only Chief Officer Kelly's was found.. Including the five who died in that boat, a total of 251 people from Lady Hawkins were lost. They were her Master Huntly Giffen, 85 of her crew, one DEMS gunner and 164 of her passengers, two of whom were Distressed British Seamen (i.e. survivors from previous sinkings). The 71 survivors whom Coamo rescued were Percy Kelly, 21 crew and 49 passengers.

KorvettenKapitan Zapp surviverd the war as commanadant of La Rochelle Uboot base until the end of the war. U-66 was sunk in 1944 after a ferocious hand-to-hand sea battle:

1 May 1944, U-66 came under attack by American ships from an antisubmarine hunter-killer group formed around USS Block Island. Three Fido homing torpedoes were dropped near the boat, and numerous aircraft from Block Island, along with smaller craft, were designated to hunt for her. On the morning of 6 May, the destroyer escort USS Buckley found the submarine. After an exchange of gunfire and torpedoes, Buckley, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Brent Abel, rammed the submarine.

The bow of the USS Buckley after the ramming of U-66
With the two vessels stuck fast, a party of Germans, under the command of U-66's first officer, Klaus Herbig, attempted to climb onto the American escort's forecastle to create a diversion while Seehausen and the remainder of the U-boat's crew worked to free the boat. As American sailors saw the boarding party climbing on deck, hand-to-hand fighting broke out in which a number of Germans were killed or wounded before the U-boat was able to make good its escape. Five armed Germans remained on deck of the destroyer but they were quickly over-powered and taken prisoner. Buckley's 3-inch gun was unleashed on the U-boat as the Americans chased after her, but U-66 then turned and rammed Buckley near her engine room, damaging the ship's starboard screw. Soon afterward, U-66 was scuttled on Seehausen's orders to prevent her secret equipment from being captured. Buckley then began rescue operations, which lasted three hours. with 24 dead and 36 survivors, all of whom were captured by Buckley. Seehausen was not among the survivors, who were later transferred to Block Island. For his act of ramming U-66, Brent Abel received the Navy Cross

Jeeze!: two classic naval commands in one sea-battle: "Ramming Speed and "Repel all boarders"...U-66 lived up to its two '6's (out of three!)...12 patrols: 200,012 tons (under three commanders) 8th highest tonnage of WWII U-Boot tonnage The battle between U-66 and USS BUCKLEY was the basis for the movie "Enemy Below" which stared Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jürgens! http://sharkhunters.com/U-66%20German%20Submarine.htm

[Jimbuna]

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

1879 British troops under Lord Chelmsford make camp at Isandlwana.

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

1945 Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn-in for an unprecedented (and never to be repeated) 4th term as US President.

[Jimbuna]

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

1944 447 German bombers attack London, 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.

1968 The Battle of Khe Sanh - one of the most publicized and controversial battles of the Vietnam War - begins at the Khe Sanh Air Base.

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

[Aktungbby]

1791: 'Vive la Republique!'

[Buddahaid]

Buddahaid celebrates his fortieth wedding anniversary walking the GG bridge early in the morning to beat the crowds. Murder suicide was only fleetingly entertained......

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Buddahaid

Murder-suicide was only fleetingly entertained

ODDLY, WHEN I APPLIED FOR A SECURITY POSITION ON THE GGB, THE INTERVIEW PANEL MEMBER ASKED IF I 'HAD ANY THOUGHTS ON IMPROVEMENTS'...MY BARRACKS-ROOM HUMOR KICKED IN; AND I SUGGESTED 'A BUNGEE-CORD CONCESSION...SO " THEY COULD "TRY IT OUT ONCE FOR PRACTICE'' I WAS ACTUALLY INVITED BACK FOR A SECOND-TIER INTERVIEW BUT FIGURED OUT I DIDN'T WANT WINTER GRAVE SHIFT DUTY. THE GGB IS COLD PLACE IN WINTER AND I'VE SPENT QUITE A FEW NIGHTS SHIVERING ON GRAVE-SHIFT GUARDMOUNT JUST BELOW ON 'AUTHENTIC' CIVIL WAR RE-ENACTAING (20 YEARS ) WITHIN OLD FORT POINT! <GUARD MOUNT PER THE OLD MILITARY PROTOCOL MANUAL FOR 1860(THE YERAR THE FORT SUMPTER STYLE FORT WAS FINISHED) IS COLD AT 2 AM IN JANUARY -GENERALY ON THE UPPERMOST LEVEL IN THE UNRELENTING FREEZING DAMP BREEZE-THANK GOD FOR OLD- STYLE WOOL GREAT-COATS AND LONG 'UNONSUIT' UNDER WEAR THE FORT WAS OBSOLETE WHEN FINISHED AS THE SHIPS OF THE DAY WERE STEAM DRIVEN BY THEN AND THE HUGE SEACOAST BATTERY GUNS COULDN'T BE AIMED SPEEDILY ENOUGH:

[Jimbuna]

1506 The first contingent of 150 Swiss Guards arrive at the Vatican.

1771 Spain cedes Falkland Islands to Britain.

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.

1946 US president Harry Truman sets up the Central Intelligence Agency.