Saturday, May 3, 1975. End of the Cultural Revolution.

Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Mao Zedong spoke out against the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four in his last speech to the Politburo.

All former South Vietnamese military personnel and government officials were ordered to register with the new government.  This was the first step to sending them to reeducation camps.

The city of Jerusalem was hit by missiles for the first time, after two Czechoslovakian made Katyusha rockets struck 500 meters from the Knesset parliament building.  They were fired by Arab guerillas.

New edition:

Friday, May 2, 1975. Hold outs.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Animals, Army, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Battle of Long Xuyên, Bears, National Zoo, Saigon Vietnam, South Vietnam, The Fall of Saigon, United States Forest Service, Vietnam War, Zoos

Saturday, April 27, 1974. Aeroflot disater, War of Attrition winds down.

An Aeroflot Il-18 crashed within site of the Leningrad airport, killing all 109 passengers. The Soviet press didn't report on the event, in spite of the hysteria which understandably broke out at the airport.

The last major fighting in the Syrian-Israeli War of Attrition took place.

Last prior edition:

Friday, April 26, 1974. A Portuguese military coup turns towards democracy.

1970s, 1974, Abortion, Angola, baseball, Corporatism, Ethiopia, Ethiopian Revolution, Mozambique, Portugal, Portuguese Empire, West Germany

Friday, December 23, 1973. The Geneva Conference opens.

Today In Wyoming's History: December 23: 1973  1973  Larry Larom, founding president of the Dude Ranchers Association, died in Cody.

The Geneva Conference opened in order to try to negotiate a solution to the Israeli Arab conflict.  Ultimately disengagement agreements would be worked out, the following year, between Israel, Egypt and Syrian. An agreement on the Sinai Peninsula was worked out in 1975.

The largest? The Hamas v. Israel War.

I have now heard over and over in the press that the upcoming Israeli invasion is the "largest" this or that, suggesting that this is the biggest war, or the biggest deployment of troops, in Israel's history.

Is it?

Well, you have to have a sense of history to gauge that.

I've recently been running some items on the Yom Kippur War, which occured 50 years ago, and which brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war.  That pitted about 400,000 Israeli troops against the armies of Egypt and Syria, plus another 100,000 troops from other regional states.  Right at about 1,000,000 Arab troops contested the Israelis.

Now, in this one, we do hear that 300,000 IDF reservists have been called up, and yes, that's a bunch.  The total number of mass Israeli troops may exceed those that were hastily called up in 1973. We'll see. But the scope of the contest is, so far, smaller.  Indeed, the calling up of the reservists may be in the hopes of keeping it smaller.

In the Six Day War, Israel had 264,000 troops, but only deployed 100,000 of them.  The Arab forces had over 500,000 troops, but only deployed about 250,000 of them.

Israel isn't going to send all of is troops into Gaza.  A lot of those troops were likely called up in order to secure its northern border.  Assuming that it invades Gaza with this model, it certainly will not be Israel's largest war, but it might mean the largest overall manpower size for the IDF in its history.

Not that the threat of this being much larger doesn't exist.  Iran seems intent on making it so.

Friday, December 29, 1972. Life Magazine's final issue.

Life magazine's final cover issue date (it came out the week before.) ran.  The cover was "The Year in Pictures, 1972".

My father subscribed to Life, and also at one time to Look. Look really declined in its final years, Life not so much.  I can recall discussion on the last issue.

Edward Lorenz proposed The Butterfly Effect in his paper  "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" 

A takeover of Israel's embassy in Thailand, by Palestinian terrorists, ended after intervention by Egypt's ambassador and Thai officials. Before everyone left, they all had dinner together, including the terrorists.

Most of the last cycle of conscripts to the U.S. Army reported for induction.

The tragic crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 killed 101 of 176 on board as it went down in the Everglades.

In the late 1950s. . .

Egypt and Israel engaged in an artillery war.  My recollection is that it was mostly in 1958. 

During this period the two countries shelled each other over disputed territory, with Egypt doing most of the shelling.  It came to an end when Israel chose to use air power to bring it to an end.

I note that as I suspect that's what we're entering into now in Iraq, with Iran.  And if that's the case, a person should be somewhat concerned about the probably escalating course.  I.e., if they rocket us, we'll surely sooner or later take out the rocket sites, somehow.

Assuming we aren't ejected from Iraq, which is a very serious likelihood.  Indeed, if this develops, my guess is that it would be a probability, as no host nation wants to be rocketed repeatedly.

Of course, maybe they'll stop with their recent rocket strike. And maybe we won't retaliate for it.  But that seems unlikely.

All of which brings up why taking out a uniformed officer of an opposing nation, even where he is not supposed to be, in a targeted fashion isn't wise, no matter how problematic  he may be.