A Hungarian delegation signed a ceasefire agreement in Moscow agreeing to abandon territory gained since 1937 and to declare war on Germany. Hungary was enduring turmoil in its government over this general topic.
The obscure Tuvan People's Republic was absorbed by the Soviet Union.
The U.S. Army Air Force bombed Okinawa.
To Have and Have Not premiered. It was Lauren Bacall's premier film.
.jpg)
Last edition:
800 Romani children were murdered at Auschwitz.
Aircraft from the USS Bunker Hill sank six Japanese midget submarines at Okinawa, along with numerous other ships.
Austrian industrialist and officers asked Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach to declare Vienna an open city.
Alba was temporarily liberated from the Italian Social Republic by communist and monarchist partisans.
Last edition:
On this day in 1971 a man wearing as suit and tie, typical travel attire for the era, checked into a short flight from Seattle to Tacoma, Washington, something only requiring thirty minutes of flying time. Once the plane was airborne, he slipped a note to a stewardess seated nearby, who at first ignored it, thinking he was trying to pick her up. He then told her to read the note, which claimed he had a bomb in a briefcase.
At the time no search of carry ons was conducted, and the stewardess asked to see the bomb, which the man proceeded to show her. And then a several hours long ordeal unfolded in which the man, who had checked into the airplane as Dan Cooper, ordered that he receive $200,000, two reserve parachutes and two main parachutes, and that the plane take a route in which Mexico was the declared ultimate destination. The money and the parachutes were provided in Tacoma, where Cooper also released most of the passengers and all of the stewardesses save for one. Showing very advance knowledge of the aircraft, a Boeing 727, he instructed the pilots to fly it at 10,000 feet, keep the wheels down, and to set the flaps at a certain angle, all of which made sure that it was flying very slowly.
Once airborne, he parachuted into the night near Mount St. Helens during a severe thunderstorm, leaving via the 727's unique integral downloading back staircase. The man, misnamed by the press as "D. B. Cooper", was not apprehended and most of the money has never been found.
This has, of course, been one of the most enduring air mysteries and crime mysteries of all time. The serial numbers of the bills involved were microfilmed, but only a small number of them have ever been located, and those by campers on the Columbia River in 1980. The bundles they found were, moreover, badly deteriorated but their bundling was not, with a small number of bills missing in a manner which raised questions as to how that could have occurred. Given that the money did not resurface, the official speculation is that Cooper died parachuting into the forest, in a thunderstorm, at night.
There's plenty of reason to suspect that is the case. He obviously was extremely familiar with the aircraft, its systems, and knew something about parachuting. Nonetheless, he wasn't dressed for a hike through the wilderness and, dropping at night, he could not possibly have had anything but a remote idea as to where he'd be coming down. While some discount the chances of his death, night drops are always risky, let alone one in which a military parachute was used (which it was) and in which he was badly dressed for the endeavor. The fact that the money never resurfaced strongly suggests he was killed in the attempt.
In spite of the massive effort to capture him, he was not located alive and no body was ever found. . .to date and, more oddly, nobody was ever reported as missing. The knowledge that he displayed was quite distinct and therefore the number of suspects would seem rather limited, but nonetheless there's never been any solid leads.
The mystery remains an enduring one not only because Cooper wasn't captured, but also because there are so many clues regarding him, and yet he remains elusive. Suffice it to day, if the event occurred today, which it would not as airline security has changed so much, Cooper would have been captured or found dead.
Cooper in fact left many clues as to his background, and therefore his identity. There was, of course, first of all his appearance. He had "olive" skin and therefore a "Latin" appearance, something that gave him somewhat of a minority appearance for a Caucasian. He was smoking heavily, although that could have been to steady his nerves, and therefore was a smoker at any rate, although at that point a little over 40% of all Americans smoked weekly, with that likely meaning that well over 50% of men did.
More tellingly, however, Cooper demonstrated a knowledge of parachutes, and expressed a request for military parachutes rather than sporting ones. A comment from the air noted that he recognized the Air Force base at Tacoma. And he had an extremely advanced knowledge of the features of the 727, knowing how slow it could go, knowing how to precisely set the flaps to slow it further, and knowing that it uniquely had a real loading under fuselage staircase that could be opened in flight.
Indeed, the 727 had seen military use in Vietnam due to its rear loading staircase for that very reason, with the Central Intelligence Agency using them for air drops of material.
These combined facts strongly suggest that Cooper had a military background of some sort, but they also, when combined with other factors, discount his having been a paratrooper, as is sometimes suggested.
Cooper did not ask for the static line T-10 model of parachute in use then and now, but rather one that could be deployed manually, as would have been necessary for the drop. That was a necessarily choice, but otherwise Cooper seemed to display an ignorance as to actual dropping. He wanted the plane low, 10,000 feet, which makes sense, but military parachutes have a very violent deployment which meant that getting his stolen loot to the ground would have been difficult. Beyond that, keeping his shoes on would have been difficult as well.
Landing safely would have been extremely difficult. Deploying into the night, and in a severe thunderstorm, the odds would have been against him making it to the ground and landing uninjured. Even if he did come down in the storm without injury, military parachutes of the era required, for good reason, the wearing of protective footgear, which his dress shoes were not in any fashion. Moreover, his leaving in the night meant that he was risking coming down in trees experienced parachutists desperately seek to avoid as they are so strongly associated with death and injury to them.
Finally, his clothing wasn't close to being suitable for a hike out of the forest.
Indeed, the entire concept of parachuting out of the plane, at night, seems to have been intentional, but it also seems to have been reckless in the extreme for a plot which was otherwise very well planned out. Cooper's plan either seemed to discount the dangers and difficulties with making his departure from the plane to the ground safe, and his escape complete, or he just didn't care, trusting to luck at that point. And that also gives us an interesting hint as to his potential identity.
Combining all fo these up to this point, what this suggests is that Cooper had military experience involving parachutes and airplanes, but not that of being a paratrooper. Being a pilot or a cargomaster seems the most likely candidates.
Analysis of his tie, however, conducted years later suggests that he worked in heavy industry, and in some managerial capacity. The aircraft manufacturing industry itself would seem to be a good candidate, as his clip on tie contained metals and substances that were used in that industry at the time, and which were unlikely to be picked up accidentally.
Combining all of these, it seems likely that Cooper was or had recently been an employee of an aircraft manufacturing company, perhaps Boeing the maker of the plane, and in that capacity he had become very familiar with the 727. He likely had some prior military experience, or at least was aware of the military use of the plane. He knew too much about the 727 for that knowledge to be casual, and if he had picked up any studied knowledge for the attempt, it would have been as to the use of the parachutes, and not the aircraft. That knowledge would have been easier to obtain, and perhaps could have been obtained on the job.
Indeed, the oddity of it can't help but cause a person to have at least some question as to a possible connection with service in the CIA, and that has been suggested.
Of course, suggesting a CIA connection to things is commonly done with certain big events, with some reaching the absurd level. The claims, for instance, that the CIA was involved in the 9/11 attacks provides such an absurd example. But here, there's at least some credibility to those claims.
So could he be found now?
Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home signed an agreement lifting British economic sanctions in exchange for Rhodesia outlawing racial segregation, with the eventual goal of the country gong to majority black rule.
The agreement was shortlived and really didn't go anywhere. It is an interesting reflection, however, on politics of the time.
Rhodesia had declared independence unilaterally in 1965 over the objections of the United Kingdom. It was one of those area of the British Empire/British Commonwealth which had a reputation of being more English than the English, but only if a person considered the English minority population of the country.
The move came about due to Harold MacMillan's policies, as Prime Minister, of divesting the UK of its colonies, something that had become inevitable but which the UK had struggled with since the Second World War. That the British Empire could not survive in that form had been obvious since before the Boer War, and the British had developed the commonwealth concept as a means of trying to evolve outright rule of its colonies into an association of English influenced nations. The concept is hard to express now, but basically it was based on there being a certain Britishness, and once a colony became mature, it joined in the commonwealth as part and parcel of the British nation, looking to the King or Queen as the sovereign, and not really fully independent, at least as to foreign affairs. Canada was the first former colony to achieve this status, obtaining it in 1867. This was followed by Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa and the Irish Free State. In 1926 the dominions were given authority over their foreign affairs.
By the time the Irish Free State was given dominion status, which followed its treaty with the United Kingdom gaining its independence, the entire concept was in trouble. Ireland didn't want dominion status in the first place. It wanted outright independence and simply terminated its dominion status in 1937 unilaterally. South Africa proved to be a problematic dominion at best as the Afrikaans population of the country resented the English both in the UK and in South Africa. Meanwhile, in places like Rhodesia, being English continued to be a huge matter of self identity.
World War Two made the entire colonial/dominion enterprise untenable even while it was the last great gasp of empire. The United States obviously closely supported the United Kingdom even while making it known that it did not support the ongoing maintenance of empire. Ireland sat the war out as an official belligerent. South Africa entered the war, but barely supported it. Following the war, the United Kingdom struggled for a time to maintain the system, but following the Suez crisis of 1956 it became clear to the UK that the day of empire and even commonwealth was simply over. In 1960 the winds of change speech was delivered in South Africa, and the UK essentially announced that it was going to recognize independence movements in its colonies and divest itself of them.
This created a firestorm of concern in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since 1923. Recognizing that white minority rule was untenable even before the Suez Crisis, the British had attempted to create a larger political entity in 1956 by creating the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, It proved unstable right from the onset, with Rhodesia having outsized influence upon it. It broke up in 1963 and its other regions headed rapidly towards independence. Concerned that the British would force Rhodesia into a racial equality, the white controlled government declared independence in 1965. No nation every recognized it. For that matter, the British South African Police, which formed the policing body of the nation, nearly refused to recognize the move, while the army in the region did, leading to a rather odd tense situation. Ultimately the BSAP came around, reluctantly.
This resulted in a hostile relationship between Rhodesia and the United Kingdom with Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson very much opposed to the unilateral move. In 1970, however, Edward Heath became the Conservative Prime Minister and the position for Rhodesia improved. The agreement noted above was negotiated with the thesis that it would move the country towards eventual full democracy.
The agreement was really moribund from the onset, being of the nature of too little too late. By 1971 colonial constituents everywhere were no longer willing to wait for Europeans to eventually recognize them as political equals. Such proposals elsewhere featuring slow evolution of this type, such as in Algeria, had likewise met with failure. Added to it, as the Cold War was now raging, it became fairly easy for independence movements to secure funding and arms against colonial governments or, in this case, one that looked back toward the United Kingdom in an old-fashioned, and very English, way. The proposal met with no acceptance by black nationalist movements and rapidly failed. For that matter, Heath would be back out of office by 1974 and Wilson back in.
The ultimate results were not surprising, but perhaps what would be to a current audience is the degree to which Rhodesia, even though it did not gain political recognition anywhere, nonetheless retained some sympathy. It obviously had it with conservatives in the United Kingdom, which were willing to acquiesce to the concept of eventual political rights to Africans, but not immediate ones. It had a fair amount of support in South Africa, for obvious reasons, as it was also attempting to maintain a whites only rule. Even in the US, however, a fair number of people supported it. The nation was a pariah of a type, but only of a type.
All of that has since obviously changed and it's nearly impossible to imagine any of this occurring now. South Africa only had 250,000 white residents and a black population of 5,000,000.
Japan's diet recogized on this date the Okinawa Reversion Act which sought to vest control of the island back in Japan. Somewhat controversial in the US, the treaty with the US returned Japanese control to the island that had been the scene of bloody fighting in World War Two.
Babe Ruth made his major league debut with the Boston Red Sox.
The German foreign office sent a letter to King Peter of Serbia congratulating him on his birthday.
The USS Nevada was launched.
It was classified as a "super dreadnaught", which would really place it in the brief category of "battleship", in a period of rapid naval evolution. The launch was attended by Governor Oddie, Governor David I. Walsh of Massachusetts, Senator Key Pittman of Nevada, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.
She'd serve in World War One.
She was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, sunk and refloated in 1942. She served thereafter in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, as well as the landings at Iwo Jima and Okinawa. She was sunk as a target in 1948.
On the same day, 5,000 people attended an Anti Militarist League rally to commemorate the anarchist killed in the July 4, Lexington Avenue Explosion.
Last edition:
