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Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2021 10:14 am
by Мастер
Arneb wrote:80 yeats aho today, start of Operation Barbarossa. It wasn't sowing wind, it was sowing storm.


Three days earlier, Soviet archeologists opened the tomb of Timur the Tatar, where supposedly they found the inscriptions (translated here) "When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble" and "Whomsoever [sic] opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I."

So the curse apparently worked.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2021 11:55 am
by Lianachan
22nd June 1893 - Royal Navy battleship HMS Camperdown accidentally rams the British Mediterranean Fleet flagship HMS Victoria. It sinks, with the loss of 358 lives - including the fleet's commander, Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 04, 2021 10:17 pm
by Lianachan
4th August 1984 - Purple Rain album hits #1 in the US Billboard 200 albums chart, and stays there for 24 consecutive weeks. The single When Doves Cry was #1 in the singles chart for the 5th week, and the movie Purple Rain was #1 at the US box office. Good for Prince’s wallet, and only the 2nd artist to hold all 3 number one spots simultaneously (after The Beatles).

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 3:31 pm
by Мастер
6th August 1806 - Emperor Francis II abdicated the throne of the Caesars (arguably), after military defeat by Napoleon at Austerlitz.

6th August 1945 - Ms. Akiko Takakura survives the nuclear bombardment of Hiroshima, inside the Bank of Hiroshima, only 300 metres from the hypocentre.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 6:09 am
by Arneb
65 years ago today, the German Constitutional Court declared the Communist Party of Germany (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, KPD) "unconstitutional". The party's assets were seized, and functionaries and journalists working for its publications were prosecuted and later convicted - by state attorneys and judges who had done the same, albeit it with much , much higher pennalties, for the Nazi regime. It was a sorry case of the German government meddling in judiicial affairs.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 7:04 am
by Lianachan
August 19th - today in 1745 began Bliadhna Theàrlaich, with the raising of the Royal standard at Glenfinnan

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Aug 19, 2021 4:04 pm
by Lianachan
Also, August 19th 1848 - 37 fishermen drowned in Wick Bay during a severe gale. Most of them were in boats blown onto rocks while trying to enter the harbour in the dark. The boats that remained at sea and tried to weather the storm, rather than reach safe harbour, had a better chance of surviving.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:21 am
by Richard A
Arneb's post is a reminder of dark times. One could ask what the hell judges and prosecutors of the Nazi courts were doing still (back) in office. And that the penalties that they handed down in the 1950s were much lower than those they had handed down earlier in the careers was likely due to the constraints of the new legislation.

But at least Germany did learn from this. When reunification came, judges and prosecutors who had served the GDR did not keep their jobs under the Federal Republic.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 11:50 am
by Lianachan
August 23rd, 1784 – Western North Carolina declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin, but it's not accepted into the United States and only lasts for four years.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:47 pm
by Heid the Ba
Lianachan wrote:Also, August 19th 1848 - 37 fishermen drowned in Wick Bay during a severe gale. Most of them were in boats blown onto rocks while trying to enter the harbour in the dark. The boats that remained at sea and tried to weather the storm, rather than reach safe harbour, had a better chance of surviving.

It takes an awful lot to sink a well made clinker built boat, even small ones.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 4:13 pm
by Lianachan
Heid the Ba wrote:
Lianachan wrote:Also, August 19th 1848 - 37 fishermen drowned in Wick Bay during a severe gale. Most of them were in boats blown onto rocks while trying to enter the harbour in the dark. The boats that remained at sea and tried to weather the storm, rather than reach safe harbour, had a better chance of surviving.

It takes an awful lot to sink a well made clinker built boat, even small ones.

Absolutely. Throwing them into huge rocks probably helps.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 7:18 pm
by Arneb
Lianachan wrote:August 23rd, 1784 – Western North Carolina declares itself an independent state under the name of Franklin, but it's not accepted into the United States and only lasts for four years.


August 23 is a comparatively busy day. Among other things,

William Wallace was slowly and cruelly tortured to death on that day in 1305
Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821
Augusto Pinochet took power in 1973
In 1989, there was a chain of humans formed in the Baltic Soviet Republics on the 50th anniversary of the Hitler-Stalin pact.
In 1990, the one and only freely elected People's Chamber of the GDR issued a law that the GDR would join the area of validity of the Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland on Oct. 3 of that year. It was the final last act that sealed German re-unification. I remember that moment. I was on nightshift, a temp job with the hospital where I had done my nursing internship required for the first medical exam. I was assigned to watch over a severly ill lady. The radio had been left on to calm her, and at 11 p.m. (and every hour after that), the hourly news had it as their first item.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 1:19 pm
by Richard A
August 24. In 1814, the British captured Washington DC and famously burned down the White House, as well as the Capitol. We still went on to lose, mind you.

1968: France joins the nuclear club.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:17 pm
by Lance
Arneb wrote:In 1990, the one and only freely elected People's Chamber of the GDR issued a law that the GDR would join the area of validity of the Grundgesetz für die Bundesrepublik Deutschland on Oct. 3 of that year. It was the final last act that sealed German re-unification. I remember that moment. I was on nightshift, a temp job with the hospital where I had done my nursing internship required for the first medical exam. I was assigned to watch over a severly ill lady. The radio had been left on to calm her, and at 11 p.m. (and every hour after that), the hourly news had it as their first item.

That must have been amazing.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Tue Aug 24, 2021 3:25 pm
by Arneb
Oh it was. You somehow got used to having your mind blown during those months.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 8:47 am
by Lianachan
August 25th, 1330 - James Douglas Lord of Douglas, Scottish knight, feudal lord and one of the chief commanders during the Wars of Scottish Independence is killed at the Battle of Teba in Andalusia.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 2:20 pm
by Heid the Ba
Ah, The Black Douglas. I mentioned the tale of him and Bruce's Heart to someone the other day and they looked at me like I was an idiot.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sat Aug 28, 2021 10:58 am
by Arneb
25 years ago today, the diveorce between PrinceCharles and Lady Diana went into effect. Certainly a minor detail in the great scheme of things, but worth a mention, maybe.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:51 pm
by Heid the Ba
I remember that the paper we’re full of “Diana, our next queen”. They are much the same with the Middleton Girl seeming to ignore that that relies on William becoming king and her still being his wife at that point.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Wed Sep 01, 2021 3:44 pm
by Мастер
On this day, 1 September, in 1939, the armed forces of Poland launched an unprovoked attack on Germany, requiring Germany to invade in self-defence.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:17 am
by Мастер
On this day in 2010, Мастер arrived in his new country of residence on the overnight flight from Moscow.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:30 am
by Lianachan
2nd September 1885 – Rock Springs massacre: In Rock Springs, Wyoming, 150 white miners, who are struggling to unionize so they could strike for better wages and work conditions, attack their Chinese fellow workers killing 28, wounding 15 and forcing several hundred more out of town.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:12 pm
by Arneb
What began on 1 September, 1939 ("Seit fünf Uhr fünfundvierzig wird jetzt zurückgeschossen!") ended on September 2, 1945, six years, one day, about 80 million deaths and 3 nuclear bomb explosions later, with the unconditional surrender of the Japanes Empire.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sat Sep 04, 2021 12:15 pm
by Arneb
Burly German Odoaker made short shrift of the more than 1000 yo Roman Empire and deposed the last West Roman Emperor, aptly named Romulus Augustulus, this day in 476 AD.

Re: On this day in history...

PostPosted: Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:08 pm
by Arneb
75 years ago today, birth of Farrokh Bulsara, who went on to conquer the world as Freddy Mercury. Imagine how much music died with him, thirty years ago.