Illuminati-R-Us

Well put.

30 years ago, Voyager 1 turned back to her origin and made a photo of the Pale Blue Dot. Carl Sagan, who had the idea for the photo, wrote an assay about the 'less than a pixel,' which to me is one of the most poignant yet most precise expositions of our condition humaine in space.

We missed an important date yesterday, the 90th anniversary of the discovery of everyone's Favourite Thing in the Sky That Is Not a Planet: Pluto

It may nmot have been on this exact day in history, but it bears remembering today that 2064 years the introduction of a 366th day of the years once every four years reigned in the era of the Julian calendar. It was to remain in place for more than 1600 years before a Papal conspiracy widely introduced the abject abomination that is the Gregorian calendar. Kudos to the Orthodoxy for not giving way to this Satanic temptation.

Of Hitler's unnumerable crimes against humanity, and humankind, this one may be "minor" in terms of quantitiy, but nonetheless bespeaks his utter refusal to conform to any ethical norm: 75 years ago, he issued the order to draft members of the 1929 birth cohort into the Volkssturm, basically throwing them all into a giant meat grinder. This iconic photo shows him with his latest victims:

It is actually worse than that. This is one of a series of photos taken at the Reichschancelry on Hitler's birthday, April 20th 1945, his last public appearance. He presented Iron Crosses to a number of Volksturm and Jungvolk, so these lads have already been in combat. The one second right was Alfred Zech who was only twelve.

Heid the Ba wrote:Alfred Zech who was only twelve.

30 years ago, the GDR saw its one and only free, equal and secret general election. Somewhat unexpectedly, the centre-right Alliance for Germany, (led by the Christian Democratic Party aligned with the policies of West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl), won the election with 40 %. Social Democrats came in second, at 21%, the party of former Communist one-party-rule (renamed Party of Democratic Socialism) came in third at 16 %.

The election paved the way for re-unification in October. The leader of the CDU, Lothar de Maizière, formed a broad coalition with Social Democrats and Free Democrats. His government negotiated the 4+2 unity treaty and sponsored the relevant legislation. This government, btw, employed a young, inexperienced deputy speaker, by the name of Angela Merkel, PhD.

Whatever happened to her?

April 7th, 1985 -Willie Macrae fatally shot himself in the head then wiped his fingerprints from the revolver and threw it 20 metres though the car window.

Here's a bit of medical history: On this day in 1874, the German Reich introduced compulsory smallpox vaccinations for all children.

Lianachan wrote:April 7th, 1985 -Willie Macrae fatally shot himself in the head then wiped his fingerprints from the revolver and threw it 20 metres though the car window.

On April 9th, 1585, an expedition organised by Walter Raleigh left England to establish a colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. This was the first of two waves of colonisation of what eventually became known as the "Lost Colony", due to the mysterious disappearance of the more than 100 settlers.

Мастер wrote:

Lianachan wrote:April 7th, 1985 -Willie Macrae fatally shot himself in the head then wiped his fingerprints from the revolver and threw it 20 metres though the car window.

The other possibility is that he was murdered by British intelligence services.

Lianachan wrote:The other possibility is that he was murdered by British intelligence services.

I had a Google after I was the post.

Given his activities, it does seem he might be at higher risk for that sort of thing.

Fifty years ago today, the Beatles broke up for good.

This day 50 yrs. ago, Apollo 13 launches.

Fifty years ago today, the famous radio transmission: "Uh, Houston, we've had a problem. "

Fifty years ago today, Apollo 13 did an unprecedented manneuver: Firing the LM main engine in order to make a course correction for the entire LM/CSM module stack. The burn lasted 34 seconds and brought the spacecraft bacj on a "free return" trajectory. 1 h and 20 min later, the LM was largely powered down in order to save energy. Later that day, Apollo 13 entered Lunar occultation with complete LOS for 25 min. Still later that day, with another burn of the LM main engine (4 min 24 sec) the crew performed the trans Earth injection manneuver, bringing back Apollo 13 on a course for landing in the Pacific ocean.

(All times are Houston local time) .

What an amazing time it was.

Indeed. We were all gonna go to the Moon. I even had a book given to me for my 6th Birthday (in 1968), saying 'You Will Go To The Moon'. Fuckin' awesome. (Turns out the book was already 9 years out of date in 1968 LoL)

And where the fuck are our flying cars???

15 April, 1970 saw a short (less than 1 s) midcourse correction burn from the LM main engine. It was a very quiet and cold day otherwise.

75 years ago, the British Army reached and liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. It began to dawn on the Western Allies that this hadn't been merely a war, but a relentless fight against humanity as an idea, an unspeakable act of negation of what had been considered core constituents of human dignity. Understandably, they had been wary to take the news from someone like Uncle Joe.

Oh, and not to forget this one, exactly one year ago. I was coming back from the funeral of an old friend - the pastor who married the Missus and me - and hadn't had the radio on during the three-hour drive. It struck me quite hard, I was surprised to find.

It was a long, cold day without much to do on Apollo 13. There was a .14 s midcourse correction burn of the LM main enginge, and the LM batteries were used to charge CSM batteries.