Sunday, January 20, 1974. First flight of the F-16.

First flight of the F-16.

YF-16, the aircraft before official adoption, and YF-17, a Northrup aircraft that did not gain acceptance.

It was an accident.  During high speed ground test a horizontal stabilizer was damaged and the test pilot took the aircraft off due to the severe oscillations it was experiencing. 

One of the greatest fighter aircraft of all time, it remains in production, although not for the U.S.

English professional soccer was played for the first time in history on a Sunday.

Argentina's People's Revolutionary Army attacked the headquarters of the 10th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Azul in the Buenos Aires province. President Juan Perón vowed "to annihilate as soon as possible this criminal terrorism" later that same day.

The Dutch oil tanker Kopionella rescued 23 South Vietnamese sailors who had survived the Chinese sinking of the South Vietnamese Nhat Tao during the Battle of the Paracel Islands.

On the same day, the Chinese took 47 ARVN soldiers and one U.S. advisor prisoner, although they were later be released.

Sunday, June 27, 1922. Bishop O'Rourke of the East passes away, Disaster at Huntington Beach, Lousy German troops.

The unlikely named former Catholic Bishop of Riga and later Bishop of Danzia, an opponent of the Nazis, died at age 66, in Rome, where he was living in exile.

Born in Minsk to a family of Irish heritage, which was also unlikely, he had resigned his position in Riga as a movement for a Latvian Bishop gained strength.  He clashed with the Nazis in Danzig, which had ultimately led to his relocation to Poland, where he was granted Polish citizenship.  When the Germans invaded Poland, he was on a journey to Estonia, and ultimately traveled to Italy.  He was not able to regain admittance to German occupied Poland.

A P-38 Lightening crashed into a crowd of beach goers at Huntington Beach, California, after its pilot had bailed out. Three people lost their lives and forty nine were injured.

Sarah Sundin noted that event, and others, on her blog:

Today in World War II History—June 27, 1943: French Resistance attacks Ateliers des Fives locomotive works at Lille. P-38 Lightning fighter plane crashes on Huntington Beach in CA, killing 4 children.

As odd as it is to consider that it even occurred, the 1943  German football championship was won by Dresdner SC.

Bill Downs, CBS Moscow correspondent, reported that Red Army troops were surprised by hte quantity of lice that captured German soldiers bore.

In Memoriam

2022 closed out with enough departures from this life of interesting and significant people that it has that portents feeling to it.  Let's hope that's just being naturally ill at ease.

Pope Benedict XVI

The most significant death, of course, is that of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who died on the last day of the year.  His death was not unexpected.

The German-born Joseph Ratzinger was an intellectual and a theologian.  For misguided reasons, he was regarded as the "Panzer Cardinal" by some of his supporters, a nickname that never reflected his personality but which rose out of his stout defenses of orthodoxy.

His resignation as Pope, the first that had occurred in centuries, was due to ill health and was controversial at the time.  There is, frankly, much to be lamented by it, at least by those who have a conservative religious bent (as I do), who lost, if nothing else, and there was much else, a conservative Pope who would have appointed conservative cardinals and perhaps been in a better position to take on the German Bishops.

Benedict grew up in Nazi Germany, where his father was an outspoken anti-Nazi policeman.  His family was deeply religious.  He was conscripted into a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft batter late in the war at the time in which Germany was reaching down into the early teens for that role.  He lived an exceptional life, but by some accounts, given his academic nature, wasn't ideally suited for his role as Pope.

Ian Tyson

Ian Tyson was a Western, not Country and Western but Western, musician who was a giant in that arena.

Tyson was early on a folk musician who sang with Sylvia Fricker, whom he later married, and then divorced.  Following his divorce, he moved to Alberta to train horses and when Bob Dylan recorded Four Strong Winds he used the royalties to buy his ranch. Following that, he focused on traditional "Cowboy Style" music is distinct from the Hillbilly Country Music and Country Pop so popular in the U.S.  He was a pioneer in a small revival that's spread back into the US, but which still sees its most significant members being Canadian, showing the Western nature of Western Canada.

He died on December 29, at age 89.

Pelé

Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé, was the greatest soccer player in the world in his era, and will go down as one of those figures who are famous in a sport, and outside of it, forever.  

I know little about him, other than his fame in soccer, but as I don't follow soccer, that says something.  He died on December 29 at age 82.

Barbara Walters

Barbara Walters was born the same year as my late father and was a major newscaster and interviewer when I was growing up.

It's perfectly fair to say that she was a female pioneer in the area, although as we've pointed out in regard to the very early history of Meet The Press there were significant women, albeit few in number, in the field prior to her.

I'll be frank that I never liked her interviewing style and found her voice ill-suited for her role, as she was somewhat hard to understand, which some people are.  She died on December 30, at age 93.

Saturday, June 23, 1922. Portents.

The Saturday Evening Post hit the stands with an enduringly popular Leyendecker illustration.

Judge, which had recently combined with Leslie's, made fun of the cost of a dinner date.

Walther Rathenau, German Foreign Minster, was assassinated by right wing German nationalist.  Germany's march towards Nazism was commencing.

On the same day Hitler began serving his prison sentence.

The American Professional Football Association voted to change its name to the National Football League.

The English Ladies Football Association hold its only championship.

Japan announced it would withdraw its occupation forces from Siberia, save for Sakhalin Island, by the end of October.

Monday December 5, 1921. Reflections from a distant mirror.

A Joint Congressional committee called upon President Harding to inform him of the opening of the 67th Congress.

The 67th Congress of the United States convened.  It had been elected more than a year earlier, so suffice it to say, things were not going swimmingly, something we can appreciate now.

The first bill they considered was the budget for the following year, which ran a deficit, something we're also familiar with now.

In London, Irish delegates met with British ones and came to a compromise in which Northern Ireland could choose to remain separate from Southern Ireland and an oath of allegiance would only be administered to members of the Irish parliament.  Ireland would accept dominion status.

The Irish negotiators were in the difficult position of receiving very little in the way of instruction from the Irish President Éamon de Valera who remained in Ireland during negotiations and who simply gave the negotiators nearly carte blanc authority.  The compromise reached was a real one, giving up on dreams of an Irish republic and accepting an ongoing connection with the United Kingdom, although that no doubt reflected the wishes of most of the Irish.

The British football association banned women from the game.

 

The United States Supreme court upheld picketing during labor strikes as an exercise of the 1st Amendment.

Saturday, April 17, 1909. Soccer riots.

Edith Kelly was photographed in her role in Havana.  She was an English actress, best known for her role in that production.

Thousands of angry soccer fans attacked the stadium at Hampden Park after a replay of the Scottish Cup between the Rangers and Celtics ended in a draw.

Soccer riots aren't a new thing.

The Scottish Football Association did not award the prize cup to any team.

Helen and William Howard Taft opened West Potomac Park to the public.

Child laborers were photographed in Rhode Island on  this day in 1909.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, April 14, 1909. The Adana Massacre continues.

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