Tuesday, May 20, 1975. Seas of blood.

The Khmer Rouge began to purge Cambodians associated with the former government, a move that would feature mass execution.

This is commonly viewed as the beginning of the Cambodian Genocide.

The House of Representatives voted 303-96 to admit women to the previously all-male service academies.   The move was quite controversial at the time.

The Senate would follow suit, with the first women entering the academies in the summer of 1976.

The final episode of the police series Adam-12 was broadcast.

The series had run for 12 years, and in many ways formed the concept for those raised in the 60s, and even the 70s, as to what being a policeman was all about.  Much more gritty television police dramas, and even comedies, would come in during the 70s and change much of that view.

Last episode.

Monday, May 19, 1975. Executive Order 11860—Establishing the President's Advisory Committee on Refugees.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Executive Orders, Gerald Ford, It was because of the Vietnam War, Refugees

Thursday, May 17, 1945. The emerging post war world.

The 43d Infantry Division captured the Ipoh Dam near Manila. 100,000 gallons of napalm were used in the American effort.

There was hard fighting again on Okinawa.

 Aircraft from the USS Ticonderoga attacked targets on Taroa and the Maleolap atoll, encountering limited resistance.

Dutch troops landed on Tarakan Island, reinforcing the Australian forces.

Denmark severed relations with Japan.

French forces landed in Beirut to reassert control of Lebanon.

A British white paper addressed post war independence for Burma.

Archbishop Stepinac of Croatia was arrested for the first time by the incoming Communists in Yugoslavia.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 16, 1945. The Haguro sunk, U-boats surrender.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Armor, Battle of the Atlantic, Battle of the Malacca Strait, Channel Islands, German Kriegsmarine, Imperial Japanese Army, Japan, Manhattan Project, Okinawa, Weapons, World War Two

Friday, May 9, 1975. The Hmong Genocide.

Kaho Xane Pathet Lao, the official newspaper of the Lao People's Party, (the Communist Party) announced: that the nation's Hmong people "must be exterminated down to the root of the tribe" because their soldiers had assisted the United States in fighting the Communists. 

Two days later the genocide would begin.

Last edition:

Thursday, May 8, 1975. The last to get out.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, European Community, Islam, People's Republic of China, religion, Thailand

Tuesday, May 6, 1975. Authoritarian victims.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Tan Sri Mohammad Ghazali Shafie delivered a scathing critique of the Domino Theory evcen as it was proving itself correct.

A convoy of French nationals and Khmer Muslims, who had sought refuge at the French Embassy in Phnom Penh, crossed the border into Thailand. 

Operation Babylift concluded.

Hungarian Cardinal József Mindszenty, an unyielding opponent of fascism and communism, died in exile.

Last edition:

Monday, May 5, 1975. Dominos. And now Laos.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, French Indochina, Hmong People, Laos, Laotian Civil War, Pathet Lao, Royal Lao Army, Social Security, Social Security Administration, South Vietnamese Air Force, Thailand, Vietnam War, World War Two

Friday April 25, 1975. White Christmas.

The U.S. Embassy in Saigon decided that to signal "Evacuation Day" for  Americans, the Defense Attaché Office (DAO) radio station would broadcast the phrase "the temperature is 105 degrees and rising" followed by playing Bing Crosby's recording of the song "White Christmas".

The last Australians, including their ambassador, were evacuated by the RAAF.

91.7% of eligible Portuguese voters turned out for the first multiparty election in the country in nearly fifty years.  The Socialist Party won 116 of the 250 seats, Social Democrats won 81 and the Portuguese Communist Party 30 seats.

There had been real fears the Communist Party would win.

The Liga Comunista 23 de Septiembre raided a branch of the Banco de Comercio at Villa Coapa, Mexico City, killing six police who were guarding the bank.  They killed two more policemen and two bystanders in their escape.

Last edition

Thursday, April 24, 1975. Wings of Freedom

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Aircraft, Colorado, homosexuality, law, Saigon Vietnam, South Vietnam, Sweden, Terrorism, The Fall of Saigon, Vietnam, Vietnam War, West Germany

Friday, April 18, 1975. Executing the radicals.

Hang Thun Hak, 48 year old former radical Socialist Prime Minister of Cambodia was executed by the Khmer Rouge.  He'd been in the far left himself and had contacts with the Khmer Rouge, none of which saved him, with execution of left wing radicals actually being common amongst Communist.

The NVA took Phan Thiết.

Van McCoy released The Hustle.

ZZ Top released Fandango!

Last edition:

Thursday, April 17, 1975. The fall of Phnom Penh.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, 1978, 1979, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, Cambodian genocide, Cambodian Vietnamese War, Communism, Espionage, Khemr Rouge, Phnom Penh, Royal Australian Air Force, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Thursday, April 17, 1975. The fall of Phnom Penh.

Khmer Rouge cadres marched into Phnom Penh, forced all residents out of their homes, marched them into the countryside, and began mass murders.

Around 2,000,000 Cambodians would die during the Cambodian genocide which only ended when the Vietnamese Army conquered Cambodia during the Cambodian Vietnamese War.

A CIA spy inside the North Vietnamese government inner circle informed the US Embassy in Saigon that the North would not negotiated, which was pretty obvious by this point anyway.

The last flight of the RAAF out of Vietnam took place, thereby taking a total of 270 Vietnamese civilians to Thailand.

Last edition:

Wednesday, April 16, 1975. Ford denounces Congress.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, 94th Congress, Egypt, Gerald Ford, USSR, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Sunday, April 6, 1975. "Election".

Elections were held in North Vietnam with all 492 seats being won by unopposed Communists.

Last edition:

Saturday, April 5, 1975. The death of Chiang Kai-shek.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Bitcoin, Chiang Kai-shek, North Vietnamese Army, Republic of China, Saigon Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam War

Wednesday, January 29, 1975. American terrorism of the 1970s.

The Weather Underground bombed the State Department building in Washington, D.C.

Logo of the Weather Underground

The far left terrorist organization came out of the chaos of the 1960s which continued on, now mostly forgotten, into a violent early 1970s.  We're on the verge, I fear, of eclipsing that era in violence, although ironically the party attacking the government now is the populist now in power.  Given as the path we're currently on, in lots of ways, can't continue, there's real reason for concern about where the Trump interregnum's violence against the United States will lead, and if it will result in further societal violence.

In interesting aspect of this is what Gene Shepherd noted long ago, extremist meet in their extremism.  We've never had extremist in power before, however.

The group took its name from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, which ironically is associated in my mind with well to do old lawyers who came of age in the 1960s singing it, as if any of their later lives reflected what they claimed to have believed in earlier days.

Last edition:

Tuesday, January 28, 1975. Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cartoons, Japan, Petroleum, Sakhalin Island, television, USSR

Friday, January 17, 1975. Chinese political turnover, French infanticide.

Zhou Enlai (周恩来) was re-elected as Prime Minister of the People's Republic of China. Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) was elected as a Vice-Premier and Vice-Chairman of the party, ending an eight year period of political exile. 

France legalized infanticide during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. 

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 15, 1975. Independence for Angola.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Angola, Colonialism, Portugal, Portuguese Empire

Thursday, January 15, 1925. Trotsky gets canned, Ross addresses the legislature.

Stalin fired Trotsky as head of the Soviet military.

Oh oh. . . 

Frankly, it made sense.  Trotsky has bizarrely retained cult of personality due to the James Dean Effect, but he was more radical in terms of the forced expansion of Communism than Stalin was, and his recent military schemes had been failures.  Moreover, leaving him in power in any sense was ultimately going to lead to a power struggle between him, and Stalin.

Nellie Tayloe Ross addressed the legislature.

Last edition:

Monday, January 12, 1925. Ordering Thompsons.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Chicago Illinois, Crime, Illinois (Chicago), Prohibition, The Roaring Twenties, Weapons

Tuesday, January 14, 1975. Un-American.

The House Un-American Activities Committee was disbanded by the U.S. House of Representatives.

It's roots went back to 1918 and it had investigated a wide range of Communist activities in the US dating back to that time.  Often missed, quite a few figures that the committee investigated unsuccessfully prior to World War Two would be again after the war.  Many of those whom it suspected of Communist activity would, in fact, prove to have done just that, in spite of the reputation of the committee being tarnished during the McCarthy Era.

It's demise after the Watergate and the Vietnam War was inevitable, but it had a much better track record than is popularly recalled.

Henry Kissinger announced that the Soviet Union was rescinding its agreement to a trade deal with the United States following enactment of the Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974.

The Convention on Registration of Launched Objects into Outer Space was signed in New York.  It requires the signatories to inform the United Nations of things that are launched into space.

U.S. Vice-President Rockefeller was appointed to head a committee to investigate domestic espionage by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 11, 1975. Storms. Things can, and do, get worse.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, actors and actresses, Afghanistan, Donald Trump, Great Storm of 1975, Islam, Leopards won't eat my face, Taliban, The Law of Unintended Consequences, The War in Afghanistan, Weather, Women

Friday, December 22, 1944. "Nuts!".

Bastogne was surrounded.

General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz, commander of German forces outside of Bastogne, sent a major, a lieutenant and two enlisted men to deliver an ultimatum to US forces.  The ultimatum, delivered to 101st artillery commander, Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, who was in command, read:

To the U.S.A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U.S.A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hompre-Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U.S.A. troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity.

The German Commander.

McAuliffe read the note, crumpled it up, and muttered, "Aw, nuts" after realizing that the Germans were asking for a U.S. surrender, rather than the other way around. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard suggested that McAuliffe's response summed up the situation well and  reply was typed and delivered by Colonel Joseph Harper, commanding the 327th Glider Infantry, to the German delegation. It stated:

To the German Commander.

NUTS!

The American Commander.

The German commander was confused by the reply, understandably, and asked Harper what it meant. Harper replied; "In plain English? Go to hell."  McAuliffe himself never used profanity.

Slowed progress caused Guderian to recommend the German offensive in the Ardennes be halted.

Guderian and McAuliffe's assessment was realistic.  While from the outside the American situation appeared desperate, in fact it was not.  The German advance had been massively slowed by American resistance, including by relatively inexperienced troops.  At Bastogne the Germans now faced two airborne divisions which were used to being surrounded.

President Roosevelt signed the Flood Control Act of 1944.

A new provisional government was formed in Hungary.

The People's Army of Vietnam was formed.

Last edition:

Thursday, December 21, 1944. St. Vith taken.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Bastogne, Battle of Ormoc Bay, Battle of the Bulge, Belgium, Siege of Bastogne, St. Vith, U.S. Air Force, World War Two

Saturday, December 6, 1924. Rounding up the communists.

France rounded up over 300 communists in raids on their headquarters, including some 70 foreign ones.

Prime Minister Herriot stated: "There are too many foreign communists in France who forget their duty to the country that has given them asylum.  They are indulging in political demonstrations, and we will not tolerate it, we will not let them meddle in our political life. If we meet with resistance we will break it, and we will deport as many as necessary."

Last edition:

Friday, December 5, 1924. Shades of the modern Middle East

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Battle of Mecca, Fascism, French League of Nation Mandates, Italy, Kingdom of Hejaz, Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Second Saudi-Hashemite War, Sultanate of Nejd, Syrian Civil War, The Press

Tuesday, December 5, 1944. The Royal Navy in the Greek Civil War.

The Royal Navy shelled Greek communist positions near Piraeus.

The Red Army took Szigetvár and Vukovar, Hungary.

Canadians took Ravenna, Italy.

The Liberty ship Antoine Saugrain was sunk by Japanese aircraft in Leyte Gulf.  And on the ground:

Today in World War II History—December 5, 1939 & 1944: US launches final offensive on Leyte in the Philippines, driving into the Ormoc Valley. Victory ship SS Red Oak Victory is commissioned into the US Navy

"Men of the 121st Regt., 8th Inf. Div., U.S. First Army, after 15 days at the front, move back along the road from Hurtgen, Germany. 5 December, 1944. 121st Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division. Photographer: T/3 Jack G. [illegible], 165th Signal Photo Co."

" An American infantryman keeps firing while two of his comrades insert fresh ammunition in their rifles, as steady fire from this sheltered infantry covers advance near Rosteig, France. December 5, 1944. K Company, 398th Infantry Regiment, 100th Infantry Division. Rosteig Area, France. December 5, 1944."  Note that the men are wearing L. L. Bean Maine Hunting Shoe boots.

Last edition:

Monday, December 4, 1944. The Dutch Famine.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, boats and ships, Chinese Army, Dekemvriana (Δεκεμβριανά), Dutch Famine, Food, Germany, Greece, Greek Civil War, Imperial Japanese Navy, Netherlands, World War Two