The House of Lord voted to approve the Irish Free State Constitution Act of 1922 with only one dissenting vote. That came from Lord Carson, who had blocked Home Rule in 1914, thereby ironically bringing about the Anglo-Irish War a couple of years later, and guaranteeing that Ireland would become an independent state.
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The U.S. Navy suffered a defeat in the Battle of Tassafaronga off of Tassafaronga Point, Guadalcanal.
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A night action, Japanese destroyers sank a U.S. cruiser and damaged three other American cruisers to the loss of one destroyer. American vessels opened fire first, but their flashes of their guns illuminated their positions.
The Navy had intercepted the Japanese vessels in their attempt to deliver food to Japanese forces on the island. Rear Admiral Samuel J. Cox, a Navy historian, regards this battle as one of the worst defeats in U.S. naval history. Having said that, in spite of the heavy losses, the Japanese destroyers did fail in their mission and the Japanese forces on the island were now cut off from food supplies.
German surface raider Thor went down in Yokohama Harbor, along with the supply ship Uckermark. Thor had been raiding in the Indian Ocean. A fire broke out on the Uckermark, and it took both of htem out.
Actor Charles "Buck" Jones, age 50, died from injuries he sustained in the Coconut Grove fire.
We were not even human beings. When we got to Buchenwald, the SS shoved us into a shower room to spend the night. I had heard the rumours about the dummy shower heads that were gas jets. I thought, 'This is it.' But no, it was just a place to sleep. The first eight days there, the Germans kept us without a crumb to eat. We were hanging on to life by pure guts, sleeping on top of each other, every morning waking up to find a new corpse next to you. ... The whole experience was a complete nightmare — the way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I dream about those days. I wake up in a sweat terrified for fear I'm about to be sent away to a concentration camp, but I don't hold a grudge because that's a great waste of time. Yes, there's something dark in the human soul. For the most part, human beings are not very nice. That's why when you find those who are, you cherish them.
Robert Clary (born Robert Max Widerman), famous for Hogan's Heroes.
The British Broadcasting Corporation delivered the first radio news report in the UK at 6:00 p.m. on this day. That would be 11:00 a.m. MST.
The news was full of interesting stuff, including the details of a train robbery a speech by Bonar Law, and a meeting with Winston Churchill.
On the same day, in the U.S., pro-Republican pickets protested regarding the self-imposed death by starvation of Lord Mayor MacSwiney of Cork. Defining that as murder may have been a bit much.
Jānis Čakste was approved by the Saeima, to become the first President of Latvia. He'd already acted as head of the Latvian state since 1918. He was a lawyer by profession.
On the same day, Kyösti Kallio became Prime Minister of Finland. He was a member of the Finnish Agrarian League, which today is its Centre Party. The party retains an agrarian position.
A delegation of various states' National Guards met with Pershing.
They all appeared in mufti.
The lovely actress Veronica Lake was born.
Constance Frances Marie Ockelman, her real name, was famous in the late 30s and 40s for her "peek a boo" hair style.
The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal commenced.
The Japanese attacked US Task Force 67 headed towards Guadalcanal, commencing four days of hard fought naval engagements. The Task Force was bringing reinforcements to the island.
One thing this serves to remind us of is how, already, the wars in the Pacific and Europe were remarkably different. In Europe, or rather North Africa, the U.S. Navy and Royal Navy had just pulled off a massive seaborne invasion of North Africa. Here, however, a pitched battle between the Axis, in the form of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the Allies, in the form of the U.S. Navy, was just beginning.
Congress lowered the age of conscription to 18.
This was no small matter. At the time, much like when I was in high school, senior classes had a wide range of teen ages ranging from 17 to nearly 19. I was 17 when I graduated, as was my father, but I've known men who were nearly 19 at the time. This meant that the government was reaching down, basically, into high school and in fact, while a deferment was possible, there were men who simply reported right out of school for the draft.
Eddie Rickenbacker and five other men rescued after having been adrift in the Pacific for three weeks.
Guatemala broke off diplomatic relations with Vichy France.
Silent screen actress Laura Hope Crews died at age 62.
I suppose it'll be controversial to say it, but everyone is well aware that some of the people who claim to be "gay", or more properly homosexual, only claim that for publicity's sake or because it's supposed to be edgy. Others do, as they have weak personalities and adopt whatever trend is in the news, and its been in the news.
This doesn't mean that there aren't people with same sex attraction. There certainly are. Indeed, the people who claim to be gay as it's trendy are an insult to people who actually have same sex attraction.
This sort of things is common with every sort of attribute. Just a couple of years ago we had people who were claiming to be black, but weren't. Claiming to be a Native American is another one, with at least one U.S. Senator and one college professor down in Colorado claiming that. Claiming to be a veteran suffering from something is another, with all such people claiming that they saw really valiant service, rather than have worked in the mess hall in San Diego.
In the 30s, if you were of a certain type, being a Communist in certain circles was fun, until it suddenly wasn't.
Madonna has come out as gay.
She isn't.
She is, rather, in a stage of her life when she's no longer very interesting as window dressing. So she has to do something, now, doesn't she?
We might note that at this part, for people who have made such an extensive career as being heterosexual libertines, to claim that they're gay, really is a good indicator that its really not very interesting to people anymore. I'm sure she'd claim to be a cocker spaniel if that was trendy, but it isn't. For that matter, being gay isn't either.
If she really wants to be in the news, and she obviously does, she should join the Ukrainian army. But then, that'd take real guts.
Or confronting her superficial past and making amends might, but people rarely do that.
Lying Little Feather
And, speaking of pretend, you have heard of Marie Louise Cruz, but as Sacheen Little Feather. She became famous for appearing at the Academy Awards as the behest of Marlon Brando in order to receive his award for The Godfather. Dressed in buckskins, she represented herself as a Native American and the protest was for Native American justice.
She wasn't a Native American.
Upset by the representation of their late sister regarding their late father, her sisters have come forward and revealed that in fact they're all Mexican American and that their father, whom Cruz portrayed as an abusive alcoholic, in fact didn't drink nor abuse anyone in the family. He was, by their accounts, a hardworking immigrant who himself had had an abusive alcoholic father.
Cruz began portraying herself as a Native American in the very early 1970s, trying to obtain acting roles, which she was somewhat successful at doing, with the "Little Feather" persona. Like Madonna, she stripped herself of her attire to be photographed, prior to becoming well known, appearing in an intended Playboy photo spread that was called "Ten Little Indians", apparently, as it featured ten Native American women.
Or at least ten who were thought to be Native Americans.
There's a quote in a San Francisco area newspaper about this episode.
“Sacheen Littlefeather, the Bay Area Indian Princess, and nine other tribal beauties are sore at Hugh Hefner. Playboy ordered pictures of them, riding horseback nude in Woodside and other beauty spots, and then Hefner rejected the shots (by Mark Fraser and Mike Kornafel) as ‘not erotic enough.’ Why do them in the first place? ‘Well,’ explained Littlefeather ‘everybody says black is beautiful — we wanted to show that red is, too.’ ”
That's obviously out of a different era.
Having said that, the title, and the concept of photographically exploiting Native American women's bodies was really pretty shocking then, even if it is more so now.
Well, the real tragedy, I suppose, was to her family, particularly to her father, who wasn't what he was accused of being.
‘Dilbert’ comic stripped from nearly 80 newspapers
Dilbert is funny.
This isn't something you can say about every cartoon. Family Circle, for example, is not funny. It may have been once, but it isn't anymore.
The same is largely true of Garfield.
It has to do with Lee Enterprises, which owns our local newspaper, as well as the one in Billings, which in fact frequently share news stores.
Lee also includes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which in an act of rebellion, and which saw its 34 cartoons go to 10, has been publishing letters of protest from its readership.
All of which goes to attack the frankly, flaming BS claim that modern newspapers tend to make that they're vital to the local reader.
One of the claimed BS benefits to reducing the cartoons is that they were making room for local newstories. This is absurd, quite frankly, as anyone who ever picks up a thick old newspaper would know. Want more coverage, add it. Poof, it's there.
And additionally, often children, whose young interests the papers claim to hold dear, often are first introduced to newspapers through cartoons. Eliminate them, and there goes that readership.
Rotating door
A reporter from the local newspaper noted she's leaving.
No surprise, our local reporter position is a revolving door for cub reporters. It's sad, really. The national paper company brings them in, and as soon as they're trained up, they move on.
Barnard applies a reproductive justice and gender-affirming framework to all of its student health and well-being services, and particularly to reproductive healthcare. In the post-Roe context, we are bolstering these services," Catallozzi and Grinage said.
More freedom, less government, and more cash?
The State gave out $6,600,000 in rent relief, funded by the Federal Government, last month.
This is interesting for a state that claims to hate Federal money like a Bar Tender hates the Temperance Union. We hate it just enough to hold our hands out.
I wonder how the "Less government, more freedom" party, at least one of whom new members is a prominent landlord, will react to this.
Will they turn down the Federal money?
Intellectual consistency would demand they would, tenants out on the street or not.
Jackie Robinson died on this day in 1972.
He was only 53 years old when he died of a heart attack, a condition brought on by diabetes and heart disease.
Silent screen actress Clair Windsor, whose career bridged into sound, died at age 80.
Egyptian President Anwar Sadat conveyed a council of war in which he announced plans to launch a limited war against Israel.
Field Marshal Sadeq, had not reported to the Supreme Council what the purpose of the meeting was to be, and even though he was ordered to prepare a plan of war by October 1, he was fired a few days later.
The Japanese crime syndicate the Yakuza divided its operations into territories, thereby ending years of inter gang strife.
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In a remarkable scientific achievement, but one which came in the context of war, and one which would foreshadow a terror that was introduced during World War Two and has remained ever since, a German V2 rocket became the first man-made object launched into space.
The horrific weapon would not enter into service until September 1944, two years later.
President Roosevelt ordered a freeze on wages, rents and farm prices under authority granted him the day prior.
The British raided the German occupied Channel Island of Sark.
The Hollywood Canteen opened.
The British launched Operation Braganza with the goal of capturing the ground around Deir el Munassib in Egypt. It would fail.
The Japanese tried again with a second submarine launched seaplane bombing mission against the forest in Oregon, hoping to set them on fire. They did not.
The great comedic actress Madeline Kahn was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Lahn was born to Bernard and Freda Wolfson, who divorced when she was two. Her mother later married Hiller Kahn who adopted her. Her mother had wanted to be an actress and for a time pursued that goal. Kahn graduated in 1964 with a degree in speech therapy from Hofra University and began purusing an actiing career herself soon after.
Starting with roles on Broadway, she broke into film in 1968 and by 1972 was in the major motion picture, What's Up Doc?, which I've never seen. The following year, she was in Paper Moon, which is a great film, for which she secured an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She was in a series of notable roles after that. In the 1990s she was in the television series Cosby, which was hugely respected, but which is now probably un-airable due to the later revelations about Bill Cosby. She died in 1999 of ovarian cancer at age 57.
An Anglo Norwegian commando party raided the Glomfjord power plant in Norway. The raid was a success, although seven commandos were ultimately captured and then executed under Hitler's Commando Order issued in October, which illegally called for the murder of captured commandos.
Ernest Hemingway, Gary Cooper and guide Taylor Williams went on a duck hunting trip to Sun Valley, Idaho,
On this day in 1942, the German U-375 stopped the Egyptian sailboat Turkian and sank her with 13 rounds from a deck gun.
All 19 crewmen were allowed to abandon ship.
British coast artillery replied, but to no effect.
A spectacular example of poor marksmanship on both sides and pointless destruction.
The Germans captured Novorossiysk.
Two policemen were shot dead in Belfast in day two of rising tensions in Ireland.
Arvid and Midlread Harnack, nee Fish, of the Red Orchestra were arrested.
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East German postage stamp commemorating the Harnack's.
Mildred was American born and had moved to Germany as an academic in the 1920s. Her husband Arvid Harnack was a German Communist and a lawyer. Their arrest effectively brought about the end of the Red Orchestra.
Dorothy Dandridge, the first African American actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, married Harold Nicholas in Hollywood. They would divroce in 1951.
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Today in World War II History—August 11, 1942: Actress Hedy Lamarr and musician George Antheil receive a patent for a frequency-hopping system to prevent interception and jamming of radio communications.
Today in World War II History—July 26, 1942: In a live radio broadcast, Gene Autry, cowboy singer/actor, is inducted into the US Army Air Force as a technical sergeant.
Via Sarah Sundin's blog.
I had no idea that Gene Autry had served in the military during World War Two.
I'm not an Autry fan, and indeed when I first read this in the early morning hours, I confused Autry with Roy Rogers. Roy Rogers didn't serve in World War Two. He was a few years younger than Autry, who did.
The other blog which had this correct, I'd note, noted this regarding Rogers:
Rogers and Wayne "are forever tainted with the stigma of opting out[,] unlike so many of their contemporaries from the Hollywood community who put country first before family [and] career," Bruce Hickey wrote. Seventy years later, people still have heated opinions about it. Wayne's lack of service has been written about more extensively than Rogers', but both are perennial topics of speculation, justification, and scorn.
I posted on the entry twice, once in error, and then to correct my error.
I suspect that Autry wasn't inducted as a Technical Sergeant so much as becoming one. He was a private pilot and really wanted to be an Army Air Force pilot, and eventually did so in 1944, then holding the rank of Flight Officer. He flew a C-109, a cargo variant of the B-24, which was not an easy plane to fly, and moreover, was one of those who flew "over the hump" in the CBI.
By the way, Autry did join the Army on a Sunday. As readers of this blog may have noted, a lot of official government business of all types was conducted on Sunday during World War Two. I don't know what the official policy was, but the government was clearly working at least partially seven days a week.
At El Alamein the British launched the counteroffensive Operation Manhood, with the combined British, South African and New Zealand forces taking most of their initial objectives.
The Japanese defending forces at Oivi on the Kokoda track, with the Papuan and Australian forces conducing a delaying action.
The German 6th Army broke through the Red Army's 62nd and 64th armies, reaching the Don just south of Stalingrad.
The Royal Air Force conducted a nighttime raid on Hamburg which resulted in the destruction of 823 homes, and which rendered 14,000 of its residents homeless.
Yank magazine, a service produced magazine issued entirely by enlisted men, was issued for the first time.
Actress Jane Randolph appeared as the pin up girl for the of the first issue, something that was a feature of every issue. Generally, the pinup was pretty mild, as would be expected from a service magazine. The first issue's color pinup was unusual for any magazine of the era, as color was much less used in magazines at the time.
I'd like to put up the front cover of the magazine, but I can't find it. Generally, Yank featured a black and white photograph. It occasionally had combat illustrations on the cover, a lot of which were of very high quality. Every now and then the pinup girl made the cover if she was a famous actress, such as Rita Hayworth. The magazine was published throughout the war.
A second group of German saboteurs landed in Florida. This was the second part of the plot to land German operatives in the US to sabotage German production, something that didn't go far due to the nearly immediate defection of two of the operatives who were landed in New York as addressed the other day.
Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was slightly wounded when a Korean nationalist shot him. The assailant was immediately killed by the return fire of Japanese policemen.
The Afrika Korps took control of the coast road to Bardia, thereby surrounding Tobruk.
Legendary fighter pilot Robert "Robin" Olds, Jr., son of an Army Air Corps officer of the same name, was born this day in Hawaii.
He became a triple ace, scoring kills in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam, and retired as a Brigadier General in 1973. His father had been a Major General.
Olds was a larger than life character in every way. He was married for many years to starlet Ella Raines, although their marriage eventually ended in divorce and he remarried (he still came in at half the total number of marriages than his father). His penchant for drinking likely kept him from rising higher in the Air Force than he did. He served on the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission in retirement.
He died in 2007 at age 84.
In my view, they didn't actually do a very good job of capturing Ulrich.
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Colliers went for a less glamorous scene.
The Country Gentleman's cover featured a female dog and her puppies.
Having not read the article, I don't know "why farmers go mad".
I couldn't find a clear to post one from The Saturday Evening Post, but it was a class Webb illustration of a man giving an archery lesson to a woman, where more than just instruction in the ancient art is on the mind of one.
The National Horse Show continued.
Today in World War II History—April 19, 1942: Future president Lt. Ronald Reagan, a reserve cavalry officer, is called to active duty; he will serve in the Army Air Force’s First Motion Picture Unit.
A full page appeal for aid to Armenians appeared in the New York Times (courtesy Reddit's 100 Years Ago Sub).
The Casper Herald reported on the acquittal of Roscoe Arbuckle
