The first remains of an Australopithecus africanus were found in a quarry in South Africa. The skull was that of a child, perhaps five or six years of age, who was killed by a bird of prey.
The anti Japanese Korean independence organization, and military government the Righteous Government (정의부) organized in West Jiandao, Korea.
Duan Qirui (Tuan Ch'i-jui) was installed by General Feng Yuxiang as the acting President of the Republic of China.
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_20_November_1944.jpg)
Hitler left the Wolfsschanze for good.
Partisans took Kosovo.
The British commence attempting to disarm Greek partisans.
Lights came back on in the Piccadilly, the Strand and Fleet Street districts of London.
Facing discontent, Chiang Kai-shek appointed a new Minister of War.
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Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and some White Russians rally in Ghulja declared the independence as the Second East Turkistan Republic within the northern borders of China, which would be a Soviet vassel, making the White participation rather odd.
The republic would last until 1946/49 and found itself at war with the Republic of China the entire time.
The Royal Air Force sank the Tirpitz near Tromsø.
Hitler released a long message to members of the Nazi Party on the more or less anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch.
National Socialists! Party Comrades!
The requirements for waging total war have compelled me to postpone the commemoration from November 9 to the next available Sunday. Likewise, work at the headquarters does not allow me to leave it even for a few days at this time. Besides, I regard it less as my task today to give speeches than to prepare and implement those measures that are necessary to force our way through this fight. After all, as in the time of crisis in the year 1923, I am today moved by only one dominating thought: now really to risk everything for the necessary success! And just as the dead comrades were rightly told ten years later that the victory was theirs in the end, so the victory must and will belong in the end to the fighting front and the no less heroically fighting homeland in the great struggle of to be or not to be.
In the past, I repeatedly pointed out that it is necessary for a nation to appreciate and honor its great men. Especially in grave times, a despairing nation can gather courage and strength for the present from its behavior in the past. How much more does this apply to a nation that behaves as boundlessly bravely as the German one! It will be able to learn the only correct lesson for the present from the struggle of its great men, namely, that Providence in the end helps only him who does not despair and takes up the struggle against the adversities of the time and, therefore, in the end decides his own destiny.
Insofar as the Almighty opened our eyes in order to grant us insight into the laws of His rule, in accordance with the limited capabilities of us human beings, we recognize the incorruptible justice which gives life as a final reward only to those who are willing and ready to give a life for a life. Whether man agrees to or rejects this harsh law makes absolutely no difference. Man cannot change it; whoever tries to withdraw from this struggle for life does not erase the law but only the basis of his own existence.
As the National Socialist movement began its struggle to win over the German human beings, every insightful person realized the impending internal collapse of the Volk and nation. The inevitable consequence of this was an increasing threat to our national existence, a slow decline in our birthrates, together with a slow national death many times the number of the dead of the World War. After all, this corresponded to the objective of our enemies. By economic strangulation of the Reich, they intended to destroy the basis for the material existence of the German nation. Thereby, they hoped to realize Clemenceau’s demand for the reduction of the German Volk by twenty million people. The struggle of the years 1914 through 1918 cost two million people their lives, but there were twenty million that had to be taken out of our Volk according to the wishes of the democratic benefactors of mankind. Today, this demand has gone up to forty million. However, since it is not up to people themselves to stop backward movements in the life of a nation whenever there is a need for it, nobody could say when this process of shrinking the substance of our Volk would come to an end. In the same matter, another natural realization forces itself on us: the world does not know any empty spaces! Nations which are numerically or biologically too weak and no longer able satisfactorily to fill their Lebensraum will in the most favorable scenario be put on a reservation that corresponds to their value and size. Other life will flow into the now empty spaces. In accordance with Providence’s law, other nations-and, regrettably, often primitive races-will then take up the fight for existence in an area that an aging nation has lost due to cowardice and weakness, that is, unfitness for life. So, in the year 1919, we faced the realization that only a reform of our Volk from head to foot would in the long run enable it to resume successfully this struggle for existence. Only a complete turning away from the phraseology of the democratic corruption of nations and the Bolshevik destruction of nations could return to our Volk its natural vitality and thus secure the conditions for a successful defense of life in the future.
According to this realization, the National Socialist movement entered the fight. Confronted with these great objectives, the proletarian as well as the bourgeois state of classes had to pale in insignificance. What still appears as the ideal to the existing classes had, in the eyes of the young movement, already proven to be insanity, a deadly poison for our Volk. The intention to erect, for the first time in our history, a Volksstaat encompassing all Germans could be realized only by the mobilization of the entire strength of the nation. By so doing, the synthesis between nationalist and socialist ideas was best able to produce that strength necessary as a prerequisite for such a fight. The proclamation of the young nationalist and socialist Volksstaat immediately elicited the hatred of all those opponents at home and abroad who had represented the earlier system of Germany’s fragmentation and impotence: the parties, small parties, groups, ranks, professions, organizations, classes, and finally creeds as the main beneficiaries of the inner-German divisions, and abroad, the democratic-Marxist world hostile to us as the main party interested in Germany’s impotence. The hatred of this conspiracy of our enemies at home and abroad has since then loyally followed the movement throughout the years of fighting, before and after the seizure of power. It has persecuted us with the refinement and brutality of which that system was capable at the time. Since the march on the Feldherrnhalle, thousands of murdered National Socialists and tens of thousands of wounded have become the victims of this only true aggression.
Since the day of the seizure of power, the old enemies all the more refused to change. Instead, their hatred increased. At the most, they adapted their methods to the new situation. As the ultimate inspiring and driving force, Jewry has not allowed any opportunity to pass since the year 1933, as at the time of the struggle for power, in order to express its satanic will to persecute and destroy this new concept of a state as such and its young state. It regarded them as the first dawn of a general realization of its destructive work against the nations and as an eminent danger. Perhaps times have changed, but the essence of the fight forced on us has remained the same. What has remained is, first, our own objective: the preservation of our Volk and the securing of its future by all means; and, second, the objective of our enemies: the annihilation of our Volk, its extermination, and the ending of its existence.
That this was not nor is it now a slogan of National Socialist propaganda was proved by the fact of Germany’s decline at home and, today, is proved by the proclamations of our enemies. No National Socialist propaganda minister could put the objectives of our enemies more plainly than the Jewish press has done for decades and does so in particular today. Beyond this, the enemy statesmen above all do this publicly through their ministers. The objective of our enemies has likewise remained the same. Promoted by the democracies, Bolshevism at one time tried to destroy our movement by terror at home.
Supported by the democracies, the Soviet Union strives to destroy the Reich and exterminate our Volk. That the bourgeois world, which at the time consciously or unconsciously acted as the accomplice of Bolshevism at home, was struck with blindness by God and headed for its own downfall does not change its behavior. The fact that today’s democracies would be dead with the victory of Bolshevism, which would smash the democratic states with all their ideas against a wall, does not change the reality of their present procedure. You can explain the incomprehensible absurdity of their actions at the moment you realize that the Jew is always behind the stupidity and weakness of man, his lack of character on the one hand, and his deficiencies on the other. The Jew is the wire-puller in the democracies, as well as the creator and driving force of the Bolshevik international beast of the world (Weltbestie).
Even before National Socialism, many at home already had an idea of this danger. However, an effective fight against it only began after this anemic insight became a confession of flesh and blood, which found an organization of combat strength in the National Socialist Party. An understanding of the necessity of rescuing Europe from the Bolshevik monster today also exists on the part of numerous foreign statesmen, parliamentarians, party politicians, and economists. This understanding will only lead to a practical result if a strong European power manages [to succeed], beyond these theoretical hopes, in successfully organizing and fighting through this common struggle of life and death of all. Only the National Socialist German Reich can and will do this.
Almost always, Europe consisted of a multitude of competing nations and states. In spite of this, Europe most of the time meant just one state or a community of related nations. There was certainly a great advantage in the eternal conflict among the European nations. Like any competition, it challenged the fitness and striking power of the individual nations. However, in times of fateful struggle of life and death for all, there was the great danger of a dissipation of the forces of this continent confronted with the impending attack of the Central Asian east, this eternally latent danger to Europe. In long periods of European history, the thesis of the European balance of power was all too often regarded by the obtuse west as a licence for allying itself with the impending danger, contrary to the commandment of European solidarity, in order more easily to strangle one unpleasant competitor or another. For centuries, the old Reich was forced to wage its fight against Mongols and Turks alone, or with a few allies, in order to spare Europe a fate whose consequences would have been as unthinkable as realizing a Bolshevization would be today.
Even though this struggle in the past centuries was accompanied by many setbacks and demanded the greatest sacrifices of our Volk, it led to success in the end. It alone made possible the development and existence, as well as the prosperity, of the European family of nations. Besides, in confrontations of world-historical impact, it is not likely that the outcome of the fight should be decided in months or years, but rather over long periods, with perseverance. In these periods, divine Providence has men line up to try them for what they are worth. It thereby decides whether they deserve life or death. That our National Socialist state will today pass this historic trial is already guaranteed by the stand of our movement up to now. Which bourgeois party would have been able to survive the collapse of November 9, 1923? Which party would have been capable, following such a complete collapse, of reaching a total victory by an unprecedentedly hard fight? Even though this fight may today appear to the superficial observer to have been minimal compared with the present events, this only reveals his failure to understand decisive values. After all, the struggle for the movement at the time was just as much a fight for Germany as the fight of the present Reich is today. It was a fight for our Volk and its future, which had first to be decided at home before it could face our foreign enemies’ will to exterminate us. How hopeless the fight of the party appeared to our adversaries was revealed by their statements that, following November 9, 1923, National Socialism could be regarded as dead and, herewith, the danger for the enemies of our Volk as eliminated. In spite of this, only a few years later, this party, which was thought to have been eliminated at the time, stood in the midst of the decisive struggle for power. For nearly a decade, it waged this fight by the reckless deployment of numerous men and women, suffered only passing setbacks, and brought it to a victorious conclusion in the end. During this time, the movement developed its mental attitude. It has proved that it is today capable of leading the nation and having the Reich lead Europe. And just as we witnessed at the time that the whole world of the bourgeois democratic party, corrupted by its compromises and cowardly renunciations, slowly began to fall apart on its own, and then finally to die, we today observe the same drama on a large scale.
Nations and, above all, their statesmen, generals, and soldiers always find it easy to tolerate days of happiness and visible successes. What is remarkable about the great men of world history, as well as nations destined for great things, is their steadfastness in days of trouble, their confidence at times when their situation appears hopeless, their defiance and courage when they suffer setbacks. As National Socialists, we were always happy about the short or long periods of prosecution in our fight, because they rid the party of all that light ballast: fellow travelers who surely would have boasted the loudest on the day of victory. Likewise, in this mightiest struggle of nations of all time, we see those elements desert us that are cowardly and unfit for life. That monarchs lose their courage, in complete ignorance of their position, which today can only be regarded as prehistoric, and that they thereby become traitors is the result of their mental and moral incapacity produced by centuries of inbreeding. At such times, nations need leaders different from these dynasties that have become ill and morbid. That even so-called statesmen and generals are deluded by the view that such a confrontation of life and death, and its impact on world history, can be decided in their favor by cowardly capitulation likewise only proves the experience of the ages that not too many great men live at the same time. Wherever such a capitulation took place, or was considered, or may be considered today, the result will not be a cheap slipping away from this crisis with its impact on world history, but the inevitable and certain extermination of the nations in question and the annihilation of its leading men.
After all, a first consequence of this will be Bolshevik chaos and civil war in the interior of these states. Second, there will be an extradition of the so-called war criminals, in other words, first the most valuable men, then endless columns of men who will set out for the Siberian tundra to fade away, all a result of the weakness of the leaders of their states. Even though from the beginning the consequences of these betrayals have, from a military point of view, been very grave for Germany as the bearer of the main burden in this war, they have not succeeded, neither in unbending the structure of the Reich nor in eliminating its spirit of resistance. On the contrary, the nation hardened in its willingness to fight and became all the more fanatical.
We are happy that in a number of the nations which have shown signs of decay a number of elements of resistance could be found: in Italy, they gather around the creator of the new state, the Duce Benito Mussolini; in Hungary, around Szalasi; in Slovakia, around the leadership of state president Tiso; in Croatia, around the Poglavnik Ante Pavelich. All these men are the leaders of young nations.
We know that committees and governments were likewise formed by other nations that have decided not to recognize the capitulation and not to accept the extermination of nations simply because a few spineless weaklings failed their honor and sense of duty, or because some blockheads allowed themselves to be deluded by opportunities in which they themselves no longer believe today. From the first day, our greatest ally, Japan, recognized this fight for what it is: a decisive confrontation of life and death. From this day on, it waged it with the bravery of a true nation of heroes.
My party comrades! Volksgenossen! Since the breakthrough of the Russians at the Romanian Don front in November 1942, since the ensuing complete disintegration of the Italian and Hungarian units with all its terrible consequences for our waging of the war, betrayal after betrayal hit our Volk hard. In spite of this, the hopes of our enemies were not realized. Again and again, we managed to cushion our fronts and halt the enemies. Only one hope remained for them: the stab in the back. As always when they are otherwise unable to succeed against Germany, they try to bring about a decision by stabbing us in the back from the inside. Spineless creatures, a mixture of feudal arrogance, bourgeois deficiency, and former parliamentary corruption came together-in the hope that they would immediately receive a reward for this act of perjury (Meineidstat)-in order to cut the German resistance off at its root.
They were right in one respect: as long as I live, Germany will not submit to the fate of the European states swept away by Bolshevism; as long as I have not breathed my last breath, my body and soul will serve only one goal: to make my Volk strong in the defense, for the attack on the deadly danger threatening it.
While wars used to be fought out of dynastic or economic interests, the war we are fighting today is a fight for the preservation of our Volk itself.
Therefore, all the sacrifices in this war will lead, as a logical consequence, to the strengthening of the German Volksstaat. If some outdated individuals are offended by this, I cannot help them. The Volksstaat will pass over them and resume its agenda. If individual subjects of outdated parties, classes, or other splinters in our Volk think that the time has come for their resurrection, they will face their total extermination at exactly this moment. The day after the seizure of power, National Socialism, which was the victim of bloody persecution before, treated its political opponents not only in a conciliatory manner, but generously. Countless men who once persecuted me received pensions from me in this state, or were appointed to new and higher offices: the justice minister of a land where I spent thirteen months locked up in a fortress was nonetheless appointed German Reich minister of justice by me. Prussian ministers and Reich ministers who earlier were our cruelest persecutors received from me high pensions of charity although I was not obliged to do so.
I felt that it was beneath me to subject Social Democrats to hardship, just because they had opposed me as ministers. Judges who had sentenced us were not hindered in their careers because of this and often were even promoted.
Only those who threw down the gauntlet to the new state in word and deed were treated by it according to the law. Through the manner in which I took over power, I have moreover made it easy for every German, especially every state official and officer, to do his duty without throwing them into an inner conflict. For over a year and a half, the departed Reich president was my superior and was accordingly treated by me with admiration and great respect.
Whoever now believes that he can throw others into inner conflicts, without ever having been forced into one by me, should know that this means his end is dead certain. As long as these people only persecuted me, I was able to magnanimously ignore and forget about this persecution. Today, however, whoever raises the sword or bomb against Germany will be ruthlessly and mercilessly annihilated. A few hours sufficed in order to suffocate the attempted putsch of July 20. It took only a few months to round up and completely eliminate this coterie of dishonorable Catilinarian characters.
Just as I took the occasion to cleanse the movement in the year 1934, after the revolt of a small group within, this new revolt likewise started a thorough overhaul of the entire state apparatus. The time for compromises and reservations is over for good. These days the Reich war flag becomes the regimental flag of the German Wehrmacht, as a symbol of the National Socialist idea of revolution and state. The German salute is now in use in the Wehrmacht. The Volk grenadier division and the German youth will help the National Socialist world of thought achieve a completely victorious breakthrough. What most profoundly moved and rejoiced me after the events of July 20 was the realization that the army, the navy, and the Luftwaffe as a whole-the Waffen SS need not be considered here-had already adopted the National Socialist spirit, even though this was regrettably not outwardly visible before, so that hardly anything remained to be done other than to expel the unworthy from party, state, and Wehrmacht in order to bring about a complete agreement of opinions and will in party, Volk, state, and Wehrmacht.
In spite of this, the consequences of this day were bitter. In a fit of hope, our enemies gathered their entire strength, filled with the belief that shortly they would be able to overrun Germany. That they have not succeeded in this, I owe to the brave behavior of the Wehrmacht and, above all, the brave behavior of the German homeland, which is most worthy of praise. The response to the appeal for the expansion of the Reich’s defense and the Volkssturm was only a symbol of the increasingly evidenced German Volksgemeinschaft in this fateful struggle for the future of the nation. Thus, next to the old grenadiers of the army, the soldiers of the navy and Luftwaffe, the soldiers of the homeland step up in complete equality of rank; not only its men, old men, and boys, but also its women and girls. As I consider the total sum of all the unspeakable sacrifices that our Volk makes today, all the suffering that the millions in our cities must bear, the sweat of our men and women laborers, and our people in the countryside, I would like to ask the criminals of July 20 only one question: with what right can you demand these sacrifices if you do not have the sacred resolve, before your conscience, to strengthen the Volksstaat at the end of this fight, develop it ever the more, so that this greatest epoch of our Volk culminates in the birth of a Reich that not only encompasses all Germans at the outside but also makes them happy at home? By fighting for the National Socialist German Volksstaat, I give the only possible moral and ethical meaning to this greatest struggle in our history.
Whoever thinks of the interests only of his class at such an hour, acts not only as a criminal but also as an insane egotist. He must be insane because it takes incredible narrow-mindedness to imagine that you can rally a nation for a fight of life and death for over half a decade on behalf of a medieval feudal state.
My party comrades! As the year 1923 ended I wrote Mein Kampf in prison.
I incessantly had in mind the realization of the National Socialist Volksstaat.
For years after the seizure of power, we fought for this idea and worked for it.
Rage and envy filled our enemies in view of the accomplishments in all areas of our economic and social life, the increasing culture and satisfaction of our classes. If so-called social plans for the future are today published in other countries, then this is only a pale imitation of what National Socialist Germany has already achieved. So today I can only again pledge the continuation of this work. As an old National Socialist, I will not waver in this fight for one second in the fulfillment of the duties incumbent upon me. I did not choose this duty.
Providence imposes it on every German: to do everything and not to neglect anything that can secure the future of our Volk and make its existence possible.
We will respond to the most severe blows of fortune with a defiant fury, incessantly filled with the conviction that Providence often loves only those whom it chastises; and that it tries human beings and must try them in order to arrive at a just appraisal of their value. I have the unshakable will to set posterity a no less praiseworthy example in this fight than the great Germans did ages ago.
My own life does not play a role in this, which means that I will not spare my health or my life in any manner in the fulfillment of this duty conferred to me as the first German. If, at this time, I speak little and not very often to you, my party comrades and the German Volk, then I do this because I work; I work to fulfill the tasks with which time has burdened me and which must be fulfilled in order to bring about a turn of events. After all, since I have this will and see the loyal following of the German Volk, I do not doubt for a minute that, in the end, we will successfully survive this time of trial and that the hour will come when the Almighty again grants us His blessings as before. At the time, we gained the greatest victories in world history but did not become arrogant. At a time of setbacks, we will never bend and will thereby reaffirm in a positive sense the portrayal of the character of the present German Volk for posterity. I therefore believe with imperturbable confidence that, through our work and sacrifice, the moment will one day come when our efforts will finally be crowned by success. The goal of our struggle is no different from what we fought for in the year 1923, and for which the first sixteen martyrs of our movement died: our Volk’s rescue from misery and danger, the securing of life for our children, grandchildren, and distant generations! In the shadow of our nation, a Europe marches which feels that not only Germany’s fate is being decided today but also the future of all nations that count themselves part of Europe and are consciously disgusted by Bolshevik barbarism. So I greet you from afar, my old party comrades, through the person who will speak this confession of my faith, in dogged determination, with my old unbending fighting morale and my unshakable confidence. On this occasion, I again thank the fighters of twenty-five years ago, who also have set us an example for the future of our Volk and the Greater German Reich!
It would be his last such address. He'd be dead by the next anniversary.
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The Tientsin Conference opened in China between warlords Zhang Zuolin, Feng Yuxiang, and Lu Yongxiang. Former president Sun Yat-sen, the ongoing head of the Kuomintang and the government sitting in Canton, organized the meeting to discuss the ongoing civil war.
Ranch property belonging to Mexican president elect Plutarco Elías Calles was expropriated by the state in accordance with Mexican agrarian laws.
Chicago mobster Dean O'Banion, leader of Chicago's North Side Gang, was gunned down in his florist shop, making the cover of The Casper Herald. His murder was nearly inevitable as he'd grown crosswise with one of the Italian mob families in Chicago.
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General Feng Yuxiang carried out the Beijing Coup overthrowing President Cao Kun and installing Huang Fu as the new Chinese president.
Ontario's voters rejected a proposal to end prohibition.
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The Canton Merchant's Corps Uprising began against the Chinese government in Guangzhou, China.
A devastating tornado hit Thurman, Colorado.
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The People's Republic of China and the Republic of South Vietnam engaged in combat, mostly naval, but some ground, over the Paracel Islands. The events had been preceded by maneuvers and landings the prior few days after South Vietnam found the Chinese had landed on an island and had armed vessels nearby.
The following day, January 20, the Chinese would prevail.
The South Vietnamese defeat would later be regarded as a Vietnamese one in general as North Vietnam also did not welcome the Chinese incursion and would, post Vietnam War, demand that the Chinese depart, which they have not. North Vietnam, upon taking over the entire country, praised the efforts of the South Vietnamese troops who attempted to defend the islands.
The People's Republic of China, Republic of China (Taiwan) and Vietnam, all claim the islands
The French government floated the franc, which would continue for six months, in order to maintain its value.
German Gen. Hans von Seeckt ordered that Berlin cafés, halls and cabarets must admit the city's poor and cold in order to warm themselves, least the Government seize them to be used for that purpose.
Von Seeckt had been an important figure in the Imperial German Army before going on to be a major figure in the Reichswehr. He was in the German parliament from 1930 to 32 as a member of a center right party, but turned towards the hard right thereafter. He was assigned to the German military mission in China in 1933, where he restored the failing relationship with the Nationalist Chinese. His advice lead to the 1934 Nationalist campaign that resulted in the Communist Long March.
Germany suspended payments on its reparations.
New Zealand's laws were extended to Antarctica as Governor General John Jellicoe applied its jurisdiction to the Ross Dependency.
Chiang Kai-shek took the oath of office for the position of Chairman of the National Government.
June 14 is Flag Day now, and then.
It was in the midst of its Warlord Era, during which war and banditry was a constant feature of its existence, with various factions constantly fighting with each other.
On this day, Gao Lingwei became acting head of state.
Overthrown Bulgarian head of state Aleksandar Stamboliyski was tortured and murdered by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization. He had been a member of the Agrarian Union party.
President Li Yuanhong of China fled his office but captured at the Tientsin railway station by troops. He resigned the following day and was accordingly freed.
The remaining eight hostages taken by train bandits in what became known as the Linceng Outrage were freed. The payment of ransom by Shanghai mobster Du Yuesheng to Sun Meiyao of the Shandong Outlaws resulted in the final freedom of what originally had been 300 such hostages.
Du Yuesheng, who controlled the Shanghai opium trade, would become a significant supporter of Chiang Kai Shek, and has been honored with a memorial in Taiwan, where he died.
Sun Meiyao would be executed by the Chinese Army in December.
On the same day, Chinese general Feng Yuxiang issued an ultimatum to Chinese President Li Yuanhong to resign. He himself would go on to briefly lead the country, and then support the Nationalist as well, before becoming, in later years, a critic of it. While a Christian, he was comfortable with the Communist regime and was honored by it when he died in 1953.
Today in World War II History—May 20, 1943: US Tenth Fleet is established to control shore-based antisubmarine operations in the Atlantic. US War Ration Book Three is distributed by mail.
From Sarah Sundin's blog.
The United States Court for China, a US Federal and Civil court based in Shanghai, ceased operations. The extraterritorial court had been in existence since 1906 but was no longer needed, if it ever really was, following the January 11 abandonment of extraterritorial rights in the country.
Roosevelt, via courier, proposed to meet with Stalin, keeping his proposal secret from Churchill.
May 5, 1943 is one of the most important dates, and possibly the least known, in the history of the nuclear age. It was the date when the first atomic bomb targeting decision was made — a full two years before the end of World War II in Europe.
Also from that site:
Like many I have concluded that the bombings were unjustified, though that is an opinion far from universally held. But some of my reasons may surprise you. I explained them in a talk I gave in Santa Fe in 2012, entitled From Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima.
I'll be frank, I also view the bombings as morally unjustified acts. Indeed, of the worst sort. There's simply no escaping that the scale of a nuclear weapon, when used on a city, is going to have the primary effect of killing civilians. Indeed, no matter how dressed up, by the wars end, that was looked at unflinchingly and was largely the point.
Of course, by that war the Allies had acclimated themselves to firebombing in Japan with the intent to destroy civilian housing, and thereby deprive Japanese war workers of their dwellings. Once again, the use of force was over matched to the goal. Striking factories is one thing, burning people to death in their homes quite another.
Make no mistake about it, Germans, under the monstrous Nazi regime, had become monstrous themselves, and in a way that no individual German can really excuse. The Japanese, who retained a peasant culture to a very large degree going into the war, likewise did, with the average soldier routinely committing murders and the entire military being acclimated to atrocity. The Allies undoubtedly had the moral side of the war, and there's no two ways about it. Nonetheless, that doesn't excuse the crimes committed by the Allies themselves, which in the case of the Western Allies came principally from unprincipled bombing. Over European skies, the British were much more guilty of this than the Americans, having turned to inaccurate night bombing early in the war out of necessity, but then having readily adopted the liberal bombing views of "Bomber" Harris thereafter. In the Pacific, the United States, the major Western combatant, went to free bombing of civilian targets with firebombs by the end of the war, as noted. In some ways, the atomic bomb could almost be viewed as an extension of the late war firebombing, but in a new, much more devastating, and horrifying, way.
Sarah Sundin noted a true World War Two technological landmark, the first flight of the P51B.
Today in World War II History—May 5, 1943: 80 Years Ago—May 5, 1943: First flight of production-model North American P-51B Mustang (with a Packard-built Merlin engine), at Inglewood, CA.
The combination of the British engine with the P51 airframe, in what had been an Anglo-American project to start with, would revolutionize and completely alter the performance of the fighter. It would be the P51B that would really start long range bomber escorts all the way into Germany.
Sundin noticed several other events of this day on her blog, including that Admiral Sir Charles Little was naval as the Allied naval commander for the invasion of France from Britain, although he would not hold the post long.
She also noted that the Japanese launched an offensive south of the Yangtze toward Chongqing. The often forgotten front, to the West, in China, remained Japan's largest ground commitment and in many ways most important theater of operations in the war.
Twenty-seven ships of all types were lost in the war on this day.
A new law went into effect in California requiring marriage licenses to identify race. Interracial marriage was illegal in California, as it was in much of the United States.
The first Victory Mail station established overseas, in this case in Casablanca.
The technology involve microfilming mail for more efficient transmission.
From Sarah Sundin's blog:
Today in World War II History—April 15, 1943: Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley takes command of US II Corps in Tunisia; George Patton is relieved to prepare for the invasion of Sicily.
All in all, Patton had been in command of II Corps for a mere matter of weeks.
On the same day, Gen. Eisenhower toured the front in North Africa.
The State Bank of Ethiopia was established.
The Sino-American Cooperative Organization was established as an intelligence gathering cooperative between Nationalist China and the United States.
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was issued. I haven't read it, and I'm not going to, as Ayn Randites don't impress me.
We are at war with God.
Joseph Stalin, caught in tape commenting to Molotov.
I don't pay any attention to the Grammy's anymore. I never much did. Anymore, however, nobody pays much attention to them. The same has become true of all the other big awards in entertainment that once meant so much. Now, heavily politicized in a PC fashion, they're really not very interesting and people pretty much ignore them.
Therefore, I ignored the flap over Sam Smith's performance when it came out, even though with Douthat commented on it I started to take a little note. But then I noticed something else.
It's no secret that a certain segment of Western, liberal, society is at war with our existential nature, which calls into mind, for a believer, Stalin's quote. And well it should. Communism claimed at first to act in accordance with man's nature, but soon saw it that it couldn't force the nature that it wished for, so it decided to make a new Communist man that was the antithesis to real men in some ways. It failed.
That's what we have going on now.
Sam Smith is a homosexual. While Pope Francis is certainly correct that making homosexuality illegal, as it actually is in much of the world, is wrong, celebrating it is nonsensical, just as celebrating hetrosexuality would also be. It is a deviation from the genetic norm. In spite of that, however, and particularly post Obergefel, now a person can hardly even point that out.
And as people who were well attune to development and trends pointed out, the Obergefel decision was going to inevitably lead to a full scale assault on normality and nature itself, which has busted out in the transgenderism craze. It was claimed that this would not occur, but with the guardrails down, it pretty much had to. Not surprisingly, he collaborates with German songwriter Tim Petras, a man who was chemically and probably surgically mutilated as a very early teen, and who goes by the name of Kim Petras and affects a female appearance.
In Smith's performance, he affected a Satanic visage and gave what can only be called an open embrace of what that entails. Perhaps fully unwitting, Smith has exposed openly what most in his camp have hidden, perhaps for the better.
And by so doing, he joins Stalin in that category. For all his defects, Stalin was a genius and his comment was not only open, I don't believe it to be metaphorical. At least he had the courage to admit what he was up to.
Of course, like all such efforts, it failed.
It's worth noting that this argument still prevails even for those who claim not to believe or doubt. Most of the general fundamentals of Christianity in regard to men, women, and what they do and interact, are not only Christian principles, they're principles of every religion, and exhibited in every natural society. That's why, we'd note, that Communism works no better in North Korea than East Germany. It's contrary to human nature, as is what these performers are exhibiting.
You can be at war with nature, but you won't win.
It's interesting to note. . .
Related to the above, that in the commentary in Playboy documentary that aired one of the models flat out stated that she believed Hugh Hefner to be possessed, and that a girl who was a centerfold or "bunny", I can't recall which painted something essentially stating the same thing prior to her committing suicide.
It was really Kinsey, and his bogus report, that started us down this road, although I've blamed Hugh Hefner, justifiably, a lot.
During World War Two, Alfred Kinsey, with colleagues, was busy studying the sexual habits of perverts who were incarcerated, resulting in a text entitled Sexual Behavior In The Human Male, which would have been better entitled Sexual Habits of Incarcerated Perverts Who Couldn't Be Drafted. It's one of two examples of 1940s "studies" being really results driven. I.e, a report that isn't a study, but a conclusion being justified subsequently by a report, the other being SLAM Marshall's Men Under Fire.
Both texts have done a lot of damage.
99 Luftballons
The entire Chinese balloon flap has been very interesting. I'm sure that we're not going to know the truth of it for many years.
What we know is only the basics. The Chinese have been flying spy balloons over the United States, and in this case, although barely noted, over Canada as well. The choice of the two nations together may be simply atmospheric, perhaps that's how you get a balloon over the continental US, or it may be strategic, that flies it over and through NORAD.
It would not appear that the NORAD, American or Canadian response has been stellar. This was apparently, if we're being told the truthy, and we very well might not be, the first time a PRC spy balloon was detected, which if true is a shocking admission of a major NORAD failure. And the entire story of waiting it so long to shoot it down doesn't pass the smell test at all. This thing could have been dropped anywhere from the Aleutians to Wyoming harmlessly, but wasn't. The story about not wanting to damage stuff on the ground simply isn't credible. They were probably more likely to hit a boater where they took it down than they were to hit a human over much of its course.
Which means somebody is probably fibbing.
We now know that U2s accompanied the balloon nearly its entire route over the US. The high altitude spy plane was spying on the balloon, likely picking up anything it emitted, and perhaps messing with its own emissions. That alone may be sufficient justification, justification that can't be admitted, for not dropping it until we did.
Chances are good, I'd note, that U2s are flying near the one now in the Southern Hemisphere.
The big question is why are the Chinese doing this?
Well, one reason is that they got away with it so far, and it did a good job of testing NORAD. We overflew quite a few places with U2s until we simply couldn't, and it was never our intent to test air responses in doing it. We probably also intruded on Soviet waters with submarines for various spying reasons, and the Soviets and Russians probably still do that in some locations.
Nations spy.
But spying in this manner is really interesting.
They may have been able to pick up a lot of electronic data from the ground that a satellite simply couldn't. And, importantly for a nation that is preparing for war with the United States, and it is, testing NORAD made sense.
A new Cold War?
This question came up on all the weekend shows. Are we in a new Cold War. Nobody would say yes.
Well, we obviously are.
One analysis, that the level of trade was too high to support that claim, is nonsense. We didn't have a lot of trade with the Eastern Bloc countries, as they had nothing we really wanted to buy at the time. China has been different, and intentionally so. The real model is the trade level between the Western combatants in World War One, prior to the war. It was enormous, none of which kept the war from happening.
And this war will go hot.
Are the Chinese going to attack Taiwan?
I'd give it about 70% chance of happening by mid-decade. I.e., we're close.
It'll also be an epic fail.
Crossing the Taiwan Strait will prove beyond them, their casualties will be massive, and their government will fall.
Liars.
To nobody's really surprise, unless they chose to be completely self-deluded, Fox News personnel privately acknowledged that they knew Trump hadn't won the 2020 election. Indeed, privately, some, notably Tucker Carlson, blasted him.
In spite of this, they just keep on keeping on. If Fox had any honor, all of these people would go, and go right now.
But they won't. And they'll just keep shoving the crap they're shoveling.
Lying about being Jewish
It's interesting that there is now some political cache, apparently, to being Jewish.
We've long had Jewish politicians in the United States, and even before that. Francis Salvador, for example, served in the South Carolina provincial legislature at the time of the Revolution and hew as Jewish. But it can't be doubted, additionally, that being Jewish was once a serious hindrance to obtaining higher office. While Salvador was undoubtedly an exception, by and large successful 19th Century Jewish politicians in the US, and there were some, came from districts where their constituents at least partially had the some background.
Exceptions started in the 19th Century, however. Portland, Oregon had back to back Jewish mayors starting in 1869. Washington Bartlett was the Jewish Governor of California starting in 1887. And so on.
Be that as it may, Jewish Americans being quiet about their religious identity, in some instances, was pretty common well into the 20th Century. Indeed, most Jewish actors in American films changed their names, if they had a name that might identify them as being Jewish.
Now that's changed so much that we apparently have two freshman members of Congress claiming Jewish identify when they have none. George Santos is one, and now Anna Paulina Luna is another. Luna claimed to be raised as a Messianic Jew and that she’s part Ashkenazi Jewish, but has now converted fully to Christianity.
In actuality, she's always been a Christian and one of her grandfathers, a German immigrant, served i the German Army during World War Two.
What's up with this?
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