Illuminati-R-Us

Now would these redcoats have been led by a man by the name of Campbell?

Meanwhile, we head over the Pond and across Space: 50 years ago, Apollo 14 landed on the Moon, in the Fra Mauro crater area, for the firs javelin throw, the first golf tee, the first (and only) Lunar wheelcart, and the return to Spaceflight as Captain for Merka's First Man in Space, Alan Shepard.

Nice Photo op, too:

Arneb wrote:the first (and only) Lunar wheelcart

Beautiful picture!

What's a "lunar wheelcart"? Google was no help. At first I thought you meant the Lunar Rovers, but there were 3 of them beginning with Apollo 15.

Lance wrote:

Arneb wrote:the first (and only) Lunar wheelcart

What's a "lunar wheelcart"? Google was no help. At first I thought you meant the Lunar Rovers, but there were 3 of them beginning with Apollo 15.

The Modular Equipment Transporter, AKA the Lunar Rickshaw.

Nice model. Yours?

No, it's from some guy in Florida.

http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/m/online/1552661.aspx

Lance wrote:

Arneb wrote:the first (and only) Lunar wheelcart

Beautiful picture!

What's a "lunar wheelcart"? Google was no help. At first I thought you meant the Lunar Rovers, but there were 3 of them beginning with Apollo 15.

The APOD of a day before showed the cart parked in front of the LM after EVA1:

I have absolutely no memory of that, and I never missed a minute of Apollo coverage. I guess I wasn't impressed.

Neither were the astronauts, it seems. It was apparently very arduous to pull this thing over the surface, kind of like pushing a pram through dune sand. They missed their distance goals on that mission, and were frustrated not finding an intersting crater, turning around a few meters away from the rim, not knowing they were almost there. The thing really didn't help them a lot.

13th of February, 1692 - Murt Ghlinnhe Comhann.

Aye, that was a sair yin.

It’s extremely well known, and has been since it happened, but in the great scheme of attempting to pacify the Highlands it’s pretty minor in terms of numbers. Between 1746 and 1750 the British army and navy indiscriminately killed an unknown number of Highlanders and destroyed hundreds of settlements. Estimates range from around 20,000 to a little over 100,000 men, women and children killed. Bear in mind that the Highlands were part of the UK (as it’s post-union) while this genocidal ethnic cleansing was being carried out, and it wasn’t really that long ago (not ancient history).

Absolutely, it should be better known.

450 years ago today, birth of Michael Praetorius, a masterful but lesser-known German composer and musicologist. He wrote one of the all-time Christmas superhits, Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen (translation here), but in his time, he was far from being a one-hit wonder. There are still at least 10 songs to his name in the various versions of the German Protestant hymnal.

400 years ago today, death of Michael Praetorius, a masterful but lesser-known German composer and musicologist. He wrote one of the all-time Christmas superhits, Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen (translation here), but in his time, he was far from being a one-hit wonder. There are still at least 10 songs to his name in the various versions of the German Protestant hymnal.

20th February 1472 - Orkney and Shetland are annexed by the Scottish crown after Christian I of Norway failed to pay the dowry for his daughter, Margaret, to be married to James III of Scotland. He’d pledged them as security in 1468.

13th March 2016 - Ross County beat Hibs to win the league cup. Huzzah!

Huzzah indeed!

Not to spoil a party, but maybe we shouldn't have failed to mention the Great Tohoku Earthquake of 11 Mar 2011.

On 16 March 1968, shortly before his 25th birthday, Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jr., a helicopter pilot for the United States Army, flew his Hiller OH-23 Raven over a village in South Vietnam, providing air support for a ground operation there. In his crew were gunner Lawrence Colburn, not quite nineteen years old, and crew chief Glenn Andreotta, who was twenty years old. The helicopter took no fire, and later reports suggest that the villagers were almost all unarmed. Nonetheless, the village was shelled, and ground troops moved in. What followed was a slaughter, with estimates of the number killed (all Vietnamese) ranging from 347 to 504.

Thompson and his crew dropped green flares near the wounded Vietnamese - this was a signal that there was someone who needed medical attention. When they flew by again later, they found all the people they had marked were dead, and realised that the people they were trying to help, they had gotten killed instead. At this point, the members of the helicopter crew realised what was going on.

Thompson used an open frequency, to make sure lots of people heard it, on his helicopter radio to send a message including words like "unnecessary killing". At various points, he landed the helicopter, and challenged the people committing the massacre, including US army officers who outranked him. At one point, he landed his helicopter between the American soldiers and the Vietnamese civilians, and told his crew that if the Americans did not stop their efforts to kill the civilians, his crew should fire on them (the American soldiers, not the civilians). Lawrence Colburn agreed, but wasn't sure whether he could really do it. The soldiers did stop, so he never found out. The crew managed to save a number of civilians, including a small child seen moving underneath a pile of dead bodies.

Thompson reported what he had seen, but it didn't really go anywhere until reporter Seymour Hersh managed to uncover many of the details of the massacre. Thompson was given a medal, but threw it away when he saw the medal citation had a highly falsified account of what happened. He testified in congress about what he had seen and done, was called a traitor by some members of that august body, and one congressperson tried to push (unsuccessfully) for a court martial. Later, when the public became aware of this incident, fourteen people were court-martialled, but only one, Lt. William Calley, was convicted (for twenty murders). He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but two days later, Richard Nixon had him placed under house arrest instead, pending appeal. Calley ultimately served about 3.5 years of house arrest.

Glenn Andreotta was killed in Vietnam later in 1968. After generally fading from public view, becoming a helicopter pilot for oil companies, Hugh Thompson ended up in contact with Lawrence Colburn again for the first time in 16 years because of a film project. Both Thompson and Colburn gave lectures on the ethics of warfare at West Point and other locations. Colburn cites a story in which American soldiers in Iraq were preparing to fire on some people there, when one of them said, do you remember what those old guys from Vietnam told us back at the academy? They held their fire, investigated further, and discovered the people they had almost killed were unarmed civilians.

Thompson died of cancer in 2006, leaving Lawrence Colburn the sole survivor of the helicopter crew. He also died of cancer, in 2016. Before that time, though, Мастер managed to locate him on the internet, and had a brief conversation with him. After providing some information and reference suggestions for further study of the whole incident, Colburn signed off, saying that many were disgusted and refused to participate in the massacre, but only one man tried to stop it - Hugh Thompson.

An immigrant who came to the US at a young age, and wasn't old enough to be sent to Vietnam, nonetheless sometimes wonders - what would he have done?

Amen, Mactep. Amen.

Wow. This is almost stuff for the A Life Well Lived thread.

Too many people think that, given the choice, in the same circumstances, they, of course have chosen the right course of action, how dare you doubt it. Germany was full of people who resisted the Nazis after '45, positive choke full of them.

I have to look up the message I have from Colburn, he identified for me someone that he once mentioned (not by name) in an interview. This person said, go ahead and court-martial me, but I'm not firing.

A lot of people did refuse to participate, but Hugh Thompson stood largely alone in actually trying to stop it.

6 April 1320 -

... for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

Sixty years ago yesterday: Beginning of the trial od Adolf Eichmann im Tel Aviv, after a spectacular kidnapping operatiom by Mossad. The person revealed in this trial made Hannah Arendt invent the term "banality of evil".

Sixty years ago today: First crewed once-around of the Earth, with Major Gagarin at the controls.

Arneb wrote:Sixty years ago today: First crewed once-around of the Earth, with Major Gagarin at the controls.

Arg, beat me to it.

Came to post this as well, not disappoint.