On This Day in History

[Ringo]

60 years ago today

 

[Stryder50]

Would JFK Have Lost Had He Lived?​

On the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, a look at what was and what might have been.

What follows is an effort to peer through six decades of history and mythologizing to offer what we know about President John F. Kennedy and what we can surmise about what might have happened had he lived.

It does not offer the beaten-to-death cliche that “we lost our innocence” on Nov. 22, 1963, the day he was assassinated. (Didn’t the quiz show scandals of the late 1950s dispense with that?) Nor does it ask, “Who killed JFK?” (though the popularity of a new podcast suggests that question will linger for another several decades at least).
....

Would JFK Have Lost Had He Lived?

On the 60th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination, a look at what was and what might have been.

www.politico.com

 

[Ringo]

in 1918, American troops liberated Luxembourg from German occupation.
A little later, in January 1919, Grand Duchess Marie-Adelaide, who was reproached for overly cordial relations with the Germans, abdicated in favor of her sister Charlotte. A referendum in September 1919 confirmed the desire of Luxembourgers to maintain a constitutional monarchy. Meanwhile, the two victorious countries, France and Belgium, both claimed annexation of Luxembourg.
There is anecdotal evidence that Luxembourg's independence was saved by chance. When the Grand Duchess Charlotte married Prince Felix (her cousin) in November 1919, England sent a representative to the wedding. The pretender countries felt that England had thereby formally recognized Charlotte's succession to the throne and no longer insisted on their claims.

in 1939 near the Faroe Islands German cruisers "Scharnhorst" and" Gneisenau" after a 40-minute battle sank the British auxiliary cruiser "Rawalpindi" (16,695 tons, armed with 6x6" and 3x3" guns). Capt. Kennedy had time to radio the discovery of the enemy and decided not to surrender but to take the fight, ostensibly with the words "We'll fight them both, they'll sink us, and that's the end of it. Goodbye!"
238 men died, including Captain Kennedy. The Germans rescued 37 men from the water and another 11 were rescued by another British armed transport, the "Chitra"l. "Rawalpindi" hit "Scharnhorst" once during the battle, without causing serious damage.

In 1985, an Egyptian Ijipt Air Flight Boeing 737 took off on flight No. 648 from Athens to Cairo. Ten minutes after take-off, 5 young men unbuckled their belts and pulled out pistols and grenades from under their clothes, which they were able to carry through the Greek airport security checkpoint. They declared that the plane had been hijacked and would proceed to Malta instead of Egypt. The air pirates immediately began "selecting" the passengers of the airliner. In the front part of the cabin, closer to the doors, they placed citizens of Israel, Canada and the United States. They were supposed to become a kind of "human shield" in the attempt to free the hostages.
Citizens of Greece and the Philippines were placed in the middle of the cabin. Children and citizens of Arab states were placed in the rear part of the plane - the safest, from the point of view of terrorists. It was at this time that the first blood was spilled. An armed airplane security guard, taking advantage of the commotion, drew his pistol and began shooting at the criminals, lightly wounding one of them. The guard was severely wounded by return fire.
Deep in the night, the plane hijacked by terrorists landed at the airport "Luka", located near the capital of Malta Valletta. Almost simultaneously with it 2 Egyptian C-130 "Hercules" landed here, on board of which 25 fighters from the anti-terrorist group "Saka" ("Lightning") were in full combat readiness.
At the same time, the Maltese authorities and the Egyptian government representatives who had arrived entered into negotiations with the terrorists. But the terrorists did not demand anything. They wanted neither money, nor the release of their associates from Egyptian prison, nor the fulfillment of any political demands. The hostages were taken for the sole purpose of destroying them. In this way, the terrorists hoped to "humiliate in the eyes of the world" Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who in this case should have taken moral responsibility for the deaths of innocent people.
The terrorists, as promised, began to methodically execute the passengers they had captured. They shot and threw on the runway of the airfield the corpses of 2 Israeli citizens and 3 Jewish citizens of the USA. The assault could not be delayed any further. Egyptian special forces took initial positions around the "Boeing" and waited for the signal to start the operation to free the hostages. And at that moment, the lantern at the airport suddenly went out, illuminating the plane standing on the runway.
The terrorists thought that the Boeing was being stormed and prepared to repel it. This deprived the special forces of one of their most important trump cards - surprise. Who gave the order to turn off the flashlight is not known to this day. The Egyptians blamed the airport staff, the Maltese blamed the Egyptian commandos.
The terrorists threw grenades at them and opened fire with pistols. During the short battle, four of the five terrorists were killed. But the grenades started a fire in the cabin, and the flames almost instantly engulfed the entire cabin. As a result, most of the hostages were killed. Only 37 of the 98 passengers survived. Many of the special forces were seriously injured and burned during the assault and fire.

 

[odanny]

On this day, November 27th, 1863, the last day of fighting in the Battles for Chattanooga ended with a surprising Confederate victory in what came to be known as the Battle of Ringgold Gap. In that battle, Patrick Cleburne's Confederate infantry division successfully halted Hooker's federal pursuit of Braxton Bragg's disorganized and retreating Army of Tennessee, allowing the rebel forces to successfully fall back to Dalton, Georgia, where they were able to regroup and be resupplied from Atlanta.

 

[Ringo]

60 years ago, in 1963, the americans eliminated their creation, President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam. He was killed in a coup d'état organized by General Truong Van Minh, under the auspices of the CIA.

President Diem's Milestones:

• Lyndon Johnson, Vice President of the United States, on a visit to Saigon, called Ngo Dinh Diem "the Churchill of Asia."
• Ngo Dinh Diem's photo graced the cover of "Time" magazine.
• Ngo Dinh Diem considered himself a great military leader and taught the generals of the South Vietnamese Army how to fight.
• Ngo Dinh Diem fought against the country's largest religious denomination, the Buddhists.
• In protest, a Buddhist monk burned himself in Saigon. Ngo Dinh Diem's closest supporter, Tran Le Xuan, laughingly called it "barbecuing."
• Ngo Dinh Diem suffered from real megalomania, which was diligently hyped by the Americans.
• Ngo Dinh Diem believed in his talents and exceptionalism. He behaved with american emissaries in an extremely arrogant manner.

P.S. Any coincidences with real people and contemporary events are coincidental.

 

[odanny]

On this day, December 4th in 1619, the first Thanksgiving observance in America took place at Berkeley Hundred in Virginia,

Prayers were offered to God for their safe arrival by the 35 members of the Berkeley Company, who landed 30 miles upstream from Jamestown aboard the ship Margaret after two and a half months at sea from England. “We ordain that this day of our ships arrival, at the place assigned for plantation, in the land of Virginia, shall be yearly and perpetually kept holy as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God”.

America's current November Thanksgiving holiday is intended to commemorate both this day of thanksgiving prayer in Virginia and the latter Pilgrim feast in Plymouth, Massachusetts, but for many, this earlier Anglican event in Virginia has been forgotten.

The first was actually in St. Augustine, Florida, the first city in America.

The First Thanksgiving - Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (U.S. National Park Service)

www.nps.gov

 

[Ringo]

On this day in 1972, Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan landed on the moon as part of Apollo 17 for the final human mission. They conducted soil research before the moon program was abruptly halted.

 

[odanny]

It was on this day, December 20th in 1943, in the freezing air high above Germany, 2nd Lieutenant Charles “Charlie” Brown, who was wounded, was struggling to keep his heavily damaged American bomber in the air. Then a German fighter plane closed in.

Brown had been wounded in the shoulder, his tail gunner Sergeant Hugh “Ecky” Eckenrode was dead, and several other members of the crew were wounded, some severely.

Their aircraft, B-17F Ye Olde Pub, had been hit twice by flak as it approached its target, the Focke-Wulf plant in the German city of Bremen, forcing the crew to shut down one of the engines and throttle back on another. This had left it lagging behind the main formation of aircraft from the 379th Bombardment Group and groups of German fighters had closed in like sharks sensing blood in the water.

Up to fifteen fighters had attacked the bomber and the whole tail section was shot to pieces, the nosecone was missing, the electrical, hydraulic and oxygen systems were damaged, the radio was out and the entrails of the crippled bomber flapped in the slipstream through gaping rents in the fuselage. But B-17s are tough old birds and this one somehow kept on flying despite the damage.

Brown blacked out for a short time due to pain, loss of blood and a lack of oxygen and the bomber spiraled towards the ground. Ironically, this may have persuaded the attacking fighters that it was finished because none followed it down. Brown came to and realized that the B-17 was only a few hundred feet above the ground. He somehow managed to get it back under control and turned west, towards England and safety, two hundred and fifty miles away.

Brown wasn’t able to coax the B-17 much above one thousand feet and he was vaguely aware that he had passed close to the perimeter of a German airfield. Soon after he realized that a German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter was flying in close formation beside him. It was so close that Brown could see the German pilot as he gestured towards the ground, telling Brown to set the bomber down. Most of the B-17’s gunners were wounded, only a few guns were still working and none were able to shoot at the enemy fighter alongside. Brown could only look at the German pilot and shake his head. Charlie Brown wasn’t sure if he even had the strength to fly all the way to England, but he certainly wasn’t going to land the bomber in Germany.

For a short time the Messerschmitt flew beside the bomber. Then it slid away, above and behind. Brown waited for the gunfire that must mean the end of Ye Olde Pub. Nothing happened. He realized to his astonishment that the German fighter was flying escort on the B-17. As they crossed the coastline and flew out over the North Sea the fighter remained on station. Only when they were well out from the German coast did the fighter slide in again, close to the bomber. Brown looked across – the German pilot looked back at him, raised a gloved hand in salute and then swung his aircraft away, back towards the east.

Brown managed to put Ye Olde Pub on the ground, not at their home base in Cambridgeshire but at an airbase of the 448th Bomb Group near Norfolk in East Anglia. He and all his crew other than the tail gunner survived.
At debriefing, Brown told his story about the German fighter which escorted him. It was decided that this should be kept secret – the notion of an honorable German pilot choosing not to shoot down a damaged American bomber just didn’t fit with the message that the USAAF wanted to give out.

Charlie Brown survived the war, went home to go to college, and then re-joined the Air Force in 1949. He served until 1965 when he retired as a colonel. He never told people about the German pilot who had escorted him home in December 1943. It wasn’t until much later, in 1986, at a meeting of retired combat pilots called “Gathering of the Eagles” that he first spoke about what had happened.

Brown decided that he was going to find the German pilot involved, if only to prove that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing. It took four years, but in 1990 Brown finally received a letter from a man named Stigler who was living in Canada. Stigler explained that he had been the pilot of the German fighter who had escorted Ye Olde Pub.

When he heard from Charlie Brown in 1990, Stigler confirmed every aspect of his story. Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown were astonished to discover that they had been living less than two hundred miles apart for much of the time since the war – Stigler had settled in Vancouver, British Columbia while Brown was in Seattle, Washington. The two men became close friends for the rest of their lives, often visiting and talking to other fliers about their shared experience.

In 2008 they died within a few months of each other.

 

[odanny]

On this day, December 21st in 1945, U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton, age 60, died in Heidelberg, Germany, 12 days after being seriously injured when his staff car collided with a truck. .

 

[odanny]

On this day, December 26th in 1913, one of the most baffling disappearances of an American literary figure occurred. Ambrose Bierce, a Civil War veteran who fought in the Battle of Chickamauga, wrote a number of famous short stories after the war's end, including one entitled "Chickamauga" in 1891.

In October 1913, Bierce left Washington, D.C., on a journey to visit many of the battlefields on which he fought. However, his final destination took him to Pancho Villa's army as an observer. He was known to have accompanied Villa as far as Chihuahua, where on December 26, he wrote his final letter to Blanche Partington, a friend and fellow journalist in San Francisco. Bierce closed the letter by saying, "As to me, I leave here tomorrow for an unknown destination." Bierce was never heard from again.

Although he survived numerous battles during the Civil War, he ultimately shared the same fate as many of his comrades - one that was UNKNOWN.

Gregory Peck played a character based on Bierce's life in the movie "The Old Gringo."

Ambrose Bierce - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[odanny]

On this day, December 28th in 1732, Benjamin Franklin published the first "Poor Richard’s Almanack". The book, filled with proverbs preaching industry and prudence, was published continuously for 25 years thereafter and became one of the most popular publications in colonial America.

It's been said that in early colonial America, the average household only had two books, the King James Bible and Poor Richard's Almanac.

 

[odanny]

On this day in history, January 3rd in 1977, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs incorporated Apple Computer, Inc.

 

[Ringo]

 

[Ringo]

"Overcast", later renamed Operation "Paperclip", began 75 years ago. Within its framework, the Americans recruited and used Nazi scientists to work for the American defense industry.

 

[Ringo]

Today is international Beatles day

 

[Ringo]

One hundred years ago, the leader of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, died.
Lenin epitomized not only the struggle for a just society, but also for a just world order: the national liberation struggle is also a Leninist legacy.

 

[odanny]

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI was beheaded, becoming the last king of France.

Louis was officially arrested on 13 August 1792 and sent to the Temple, an ancient fortress in Paris that was used as a prison. On 21 September, the National Assembly declared France to be a republic, and abolished the monarchy. Louis was stripped of all of his titles and honors, and from this date was known as Citoyen Louis Capet.

On 21 January 1793, Louis XVI, at age 38, was beheaded by guillotine on the Place de la Révolution. As Louis XVI mounted the scaffold, he appeared dignified and resigned. He delivered a short speech in which he pardoned "...those who are the cause of my death.... ".He then declared himself innocent of the crimes of which he was accused, praying that his blood would not fall back on France.

Many accounts suggest Louis XVI's desire to say more, but Antoine Joseph Santerre, a general in the National Guard, halted the speech by ordering a drum roll. The former king was then quickly beheaded. Some accounts of Louis's beheading indicate that the blade did not sever his neck entirely the first time. There are also accounts of a blood-curdling scream issuing from Louis after the blade fell but this is unlikely, since the blade severed Louis' spine. The executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson, testified that the former king had bravely met his fate.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

60 years ago today

The week before he ordered the advisors to return from Vietnam; he also promised to scatter the CIA to the winds. The guy in the frontg seat passenger side was DEFINATELY in on it

 

[Ringo]

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI was beheaded, becoming the last king of France.

Last? They have later three more kings and two emperors

 

[Ringo]

On this day in 1848, the Californian gold rush began after James Wilson Marshall found gold in the bed of the American River. Hundreds of thousands of people flocked to California to try their luck, leading to the growth of San Francisco into a major city.