Saturday, August 3, 1901. Muscular Christianity and Manly Men.

The first ascent of  Canada's 11,870-foot Mount Assiniboine,"one of the classic mountaineering peaks of the world", occurred. It was accomplished by James Outram, Christian Bohren and Christian Hasler.

By Edna Winti - https://www.flickr.com/photos/ednawinti/7987475098/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=95018554

No one living today shall know the joy of such an achievement, and all achievements today, except personal ones in accordance with nature and the Natural Law, shal equate to it. Compared to our own era, the achievements of the rich and powerful, Gates, Musk, etc., are utter worthless dirt. What's more, they know it.

James Outram was a clergyman of the Church of England. While I'm of the view that the high church, in the Church of England, has no excuse for not becoming Catholic, I'll note that some of its members were really remarkable at the time. Christian pastors with the bark on.

The HMS Viper, the first  major steam powered Royal Navy ship was wrecked beyond repair during Royal Navy maneuvers near the Channel Island when it struck a reef near the island of Alderney, ripping out the bottom of its hull.  

It was a fairly modern ship.

It was, of course, a Saturday.

In this era of labor strife, it's interesting how often working men were depicted as very manly men.

I know that we shouldn't , but I can't help but note that things were perhaps existentially more genuine then.

Last edition:

Friday, August 2, 1901. New colonies.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, Boer War, British Empire, Orange Free State, Orange River Colony, South Africa, South African Republic (Transvaal), The Boer Republics, Transvaal Colony, War Crimes

Friday, July 28, 1911. War ending as other prepare for war.

Government troops defeated Haitian rebels at Les Cayes.

The Australasian Antarctic Expedition departed London aboard the SY Aurora.

Gen. Joseph Joffre was made the Chief of the General Staff of the Army of France, the first person to hold that position..

Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier announced a plan of cooperation between the Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealander navies.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 27, 1911. Ordered to ride.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Art, Coles Phillips, Equine Transportation, French Army, Health, Military, Old Age, Omar Bradley, Theodore Roosevelt, Women

Saturday, June 29, 1776. A constitution for Virginia.

Anticipating what would occur in Congress the Virginia Convention adopted the first constitution of the independent Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia had no constitution at all prior to that.

The Continental Congress had Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence for one day at this point.

The Continental Navy won the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.

Last edition:

Saturday, December 16, 1775. Jane Austen Is Born

Labels: 1770s, 1775, Blog Mirror, Jane Austen, The written word, Uncle Mike

Friday, June 7, 1946. BBC Television resumes broadcasting.

BBC Television, which had been off the air since September 1, 1939, resumed broadcasting.  The resumption was for only an hour on June 7, but it signaled its first return. The programming featured speakers welcoming the audience back, a performance by ballerina Margo Fonteyn, a talk segment, and a rebroadcast of Disney's Mickey's Gala, the latter being the last thing broadcast in 1939.

There were over 18,000 television sets in the US when service was suspended.

The players of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which had threatened to walk out if they were not allowed to join the American Baseball Guild, didn't.

First flight of the Short Sturgeon.

The design was to have been a carrier borne aircraft, but like a lot of revolutionary piston engined aircraft of its era, it wasn't around very long.  Only 28 were built.

Last edition:

Monday, June 3, 1946. Irene Morgan and the bus.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Court, Ethnicities, law, Racism, Transportation

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

The signatories to the Boxer Protocol gave China an ultimatum for the commanders of the Taku Forts, who had just fired on the Japanese, to remove all mines placed at the mouth of the Pei River and to end their blockade of Tianjin by noon on Friday, March 19. 

At least 12 ships from the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, France and Italy were blocked from traveling into the Pei River to Tianjin.  They were authorized to end the blockade by force if necessary.

A manhunt came to an end:

Of interest to us here, an inspection of National Guard cavalry was taking place in what was a unit that comprised Idaho and Wyoming National Guardsmen.  I knew that had happened later (the joint command), but I wasn't aware of it being so early, well before the 115th Cavalry Regiment came into existence.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Advertising, Alabama, Cartoons, Costa Rica, Country & Western Music, Crime, Disaster, Electrical Power, Hillbilly Music, Music, Personalities, Railroads, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Natrona County)

Sunday, December 28, 1975. Conflict in the Third Cod War.

The Icelandic Coast Guard vessel ICGV Týr rammed the Royal Navy frigate HMS Andromeda which was escorting two British fishing trawlers in what Iceland claimed as its territorial waters in the first confrontation of the Third Cod War.

The Týr is still in service.  The HMS Andromeda went on to serve in the Falklands War and was decommissioned in 1983.

Argentine guerilla commander Roberto Quieto was captured by soldiers in Martinez, Argentina during a raid on a warehouse. He'd betray his confederates under torture.

Quieto was a lawyer by training and would disappear while in Argentine captivity in 1976.

Both Chile and Argentina went through a period like this, called the Dirty War in Argentina.

Down 14-10 with  32 seconds remaining on  the clock, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach threw a long pass to win the game.  Interviewed later, he'd say:

It's a play you hit one in a hundred times if you're lucky.  It's a Hail Mary pass.  You throw it up and pray he catches it.

Staubach thereby coined, unintentionally the phrase that's irreverently used to refer to such desperate passes in football today.  I dislike the phrase so much I thought about not posting it here, but it's so frequently used, I relented.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 23, 1975. Going metric.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, 79th Congress, Cheesecake, Ethnicities, It was because of World War Two, law, Marriage, The Press, The relationship between men and women, Women, World War Two

Wednesday, December 26, 1945. Boxing Day.

Seagulls surround the USS Wisconsin after it dumping of Christmas meal leftovers.

Former Vietnamese Emperor Duy Tân, 45, (Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh San) was killed in an airplane crash in Central Africa.

As Emperor, he had participated in an anti French rebellion while only 16 years old, an event which lead to the French removing him from his throne.  He thereafter went into exile on Réunion Island, where he retained pro independence views.  During World War Two he held anti Vichy views and entered the Free French Navy, and then Army, when the island was liberated from Vichy.  DeGaulle, realizing how desperate the situation in French Indochina was, was having  him returned to Vietnam where he would have been re-installed as Emperor, which would have amounted to deposing Boa Dai, who had sided with Vichy.  His untimely death left the Communist dominated Viet Minh as the only real functioning anti colonial force in the region.

Still highly regarded in Vietnam, most Vietnamese cities have streets named after him.  His remains were reinterred in Vietnam in 1987.

The Red Chinese won the Gaoyou–Shaobo Campaign in which the Nationalist troops were principally made up of units that had formerly collaborated with the Japanese.

Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, who in spite of his age saw some service in World War Two, died at age 73.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 25, 1945. Christmas.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, Cheesecake, Christianity, Christmas, Holidays, Imperial Japanese Navy, It was because of World War Two, Newspapers, religion, The Cold War, Wake Island, War, War Crimes, Women

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

A Walk In The Sun was released.  I'm personally not a great fan of the movie, but many regard it as one of the greatest World War Two, and indeed war, films ever.

3 December 1945

3 December 1945: The first landing and takeoff aboard an aircraft carrier by a jet-powered aircraft were made by Lieutenant-Commander Eric Melrose Brown, M.B.E., D.S.C., R.N.V.R., Chief Naval Test Pilot at RAE Farnborough, while flying a de Havilland DH.100 Sea Vampire Mk.10, LZ551/G. The ship was the Royal Navy Colossus-class light aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean (R68), under the command of Captain Casper John, R.N.

The Arab League voted to boycott all goods from Jewish Palestine.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington holding that held that a party may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state.

This ad appeared in Sheridan's newspaper:

Last edition:

Friday, November 30, 1945. Executing Germans for ordering the killing of civilian sailors and for directly killing downed airmen.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Cartoons, German Kriegsmarine, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, Home Front, It was because of World War Two, Nuclear power, Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes, Weapons, World War Two

Thursday, November 12, 1925. Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five.

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five (Lous, his then wife Lil Hardin Armstrong on piano, Edward "Kid" Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet and Johnny St. Cyr on guitar and banjo) recorded their first songs for Okeh Records.

The British submarine HMS M1 was hit by the SS Vidar and sank in the English Channel with the loss of all 69 hands.

Last edition:

Sunday, November 8, 1925. The Eagle.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 at the movies

Thursday, August 30, 1945. Landing on Japan, meeting with Hồ

"U.S.S.R. naval attache in Japan. Commodore Anatoly Radionov passes out Russian cigarettes to press men at Atsugi strip, Tokyo. 30 August, 1945. Photographer: R.H. Mohrman."

America and British troops landed in the Tokyo region.  The US 11th Airborne Division flew into Atsugi airfield.  The 4th and 6th Marine Regiments landed  in the naval base at Yokosuka. General MacArthur flew from Manila to organize the US occupation and set up his temporary headquarters at Yokohama.

The USS San Juan started to evacuate Allied prisoners of war detained in the Japanese home islands.

The Royal Navy reoccupied Hong Kong.

Japanese surrenders in Burma continued..

The Allied Control Council took formal control of Germany.

A B-29 Superfortress on a supply flight crashed in bad weather in the neighbourhood of Mount Oyaji (親父岳, Oyaji-take) on Mount Sobo (祖母山). All twelve crewmen were killed.

Hồ Chí Minh invited several people to contribute their ideas toward his Declaration of Independence, including a number of American OSS officers.   While there were notable exceptions, like John Burch, the OSS was heavily left leaning and indeed included a number of Communists within its ranks, something that was not really very much frowned on at the time.  

Mexico recognized the Spanish Republican government in exile as the government of Spain.  The Spanish Republican government in exile was located in Mexico City, having relocated there after the fall of France in World War Two.  It'd return to Paris in 1946.  The body would recognize the restored Spanish constitutional monarch as the legitimate government in 1977.

Last edition:

Wednesday, August 29, 1945. The USS Missouri arrives at Tokyo Bay.

Labels: 1940, 1945, 1945 at the movies, boats and ships, British Army, Chiang Kai-shek, Chinese Civil War, George C. Marshall, Harry S. Truman, Mao Zedong, Pearl Harbor Hawaii, Southeast Asia, U.S. Navy, World War Two

Friday, August 10, 1945. Ending one war and resuming another.

The Japanese government announced that a message had been sent to the Allies accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration provided that it "does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of the Emperor as sovereign ruler."

The US press correctly and immediately interpreted this as an offer to surrender, albeit with a condition.

A Japanese protest against the use of the Atomic Bomb, delivered through neutral Switzerland, was delivered to the United States.

The US and Royal Navy bombarded Kamaishi from the sea.

The U.S. Air Force hit targets on Honshu.

The Red Army had already advanced 120 miles into Manchuria.

Note they are using bait casting reels.

The Chinese Civil War resumed with the beginning of the Opening Campaign by the Nationalist Chinese.

The resumption of the civil war was inevitable.  The outcome, however, wouldn't have been predicated the way it came out at all.  The Red Chinese had never done particularly well in combat against the Nationalist, and oddly enough their material support from the Soviet Union had been thin.  The Nationalist were now well equipped due to US support during World War Two.

Last edition:

Thursday, August 9, 1945. Bombing Nagasaki.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Nagasaki Japan, Operation August Storm, Operation Centerboard, USSR, Weapons, World War Two

Wednesday, July 25, 1945. Truman orders the atomic bomb used on Japan.

Truman ordered the bomb dropped on Japan.  The news was conveyed to the military to accomplish the act.

The Potsdam Conference took a recess so that the British delegation could return to the UK to hear the election results.

Marshall Pétain spoke at his trial for the first time, stating he was deaf and had not heard a thing that had been said in court up to that time.

American cruisers Pasadena, Springfield, Wilkes-Barre and Astoria bombarded Japanese air bases in southern Honshu. 

US aircraft attacked Kure naval base and the airfields at Nagoya, Osaka and Miho for a second day, sinking the battleships Hyuga, Ise, and Haruna, the escort carrier Kaiyo and the heavy cruisers Aoba and Iwate are all sunk. The Japanese put up no resistance.

The US declared that Mindanao was free of organized Japanese resistance.

The Japanese pulled out of Taunggyi in the Shan states, Burma.

British naval and air units continued attacks on Japanese positions and transportation targets on the west coast of Malaya.

Last edition:

Tuesday, July 24, 1945. An unsurprised Stalin.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Aircraft, boats and ships, China, Espionage, Harry S. Truman, Japan, Joseph Stalin, Nuclear power, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, Weapons

Tuesday, July 17, 1945. The Potsdam Conference begins.

Churchill, who was actually on his way out due to having lost the recent British election, Truman, who was brand new to the Oval Office, and Stalin.

The Potsdam Conference between Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman commenced.

The immediate topic was the governance of postwar Germany.

The British participated in a carrier raid on Tokyo.

German Field Marshal Busch, the former commander of Army Group Center on the Eastern Front, died at the military hospital in Notts at age 60 due to a heart attack.

The King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth visited Ulster.

Last edition:

Monday, July 16, 1945. Trinity.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, British Army, Manhattan Project, Nuclear power, Post WWII Occupation of Germany, The relationship between men and women, Trinity, United States, Weapons, World War Two

Sunday, July 11, 1915. Garza enters Mexico City. Revolutionary ambush in Brownsville.

Constitutionalist Gen. Pablo Gonzáles Garza entered Mexico City

Sheriff's Deputy Constable Pablo Falcon and Deputy Sheriff  Encarnacion Cuellar were shot and killed when they were ambushed by six men at a dance hall three miles from Brownsville, Texas. They are asserted to be the first victims of the Plan of San Diego, with it being ironic in that they were both Hispanic.  Other causes for the ambush have been theorized.

The Germans scuttled the cruiser SMS Königsberg in the Rufiji River, German East Africa following the vessel being heavily damaged in action against the Royal Navy.

Last edition:

Saturday, July 10, 1915. Writing the Mexican governments about Huerta.

Labels: 1910s, 1915, Art, Battle of Manzikert, Constitutionalist Army, Conventionists, Imperial Russian Army, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Ottoman Army, Victoriano Huerta, World War One