Taj Mahal in 1971.
The great bluesman, Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr., better known by his stage name Taj Mahal, was born on this day in 1942.
Fredericks studied to be a farmer, and seriously considered taking up that vocation, before his innate musical talent and love of the blues determined his course in life. Playing in multiple blues styles, his music is actually a bit difficult to define, stretching from electric delta old-fashioned primitive blues.
He's still actively playing today.
Sarah Sundin reports an aviation milestone:
Today in World War II History—May 17, 1942: Igor Sikorsky and Les Morris fly XR-4, the US Army’s first helicopter, 700 miles from Stratford, CT, to Wright Field, OH.
She also reports that on this day in 1942 the Germans stopped a Soviet advance on Kharkiv.
There are a number of things that are interesting and significant about these series of events (none of which have to do with the Ukrainian Army just pushing the Russian Army out of the same city over the past few days).
This represented the first effort of the Red Army to really mount a major offensive against the Germans, and whether intentional or not, they slightly got the jump on the Germans timing wise. It would be to no avail, however.
The Germans would nearly simultaneously launch their own offensive, which had the practical impact of being a counteroffensive in this area. The German efforts would be successful. At the same time, the Germans had managed to take all of Crimea save for a single port city.
That the Germans, in the spring of 1942, were still capable of launching offensive operations in the East is, frankly, amazing. Their failure to take all of their objectives in the USSR in the spring and summer of 1941, and their being pushed back in the north during the winter, should have resulted in such a massive depletion of their resources that 1942 should have spelled their end. Instead, they were launching new spring offensives.
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