This isn't the first time this has been done. Earlier it was done as the criteria for receiving the medal changed and many pre World War One medals were downgraded.
Thursday, July 25, 2024
Tuesday, July 25, 1944. Operation Cobra commences. Operation Spring does as well.
The operation would begin the breakout from the bocage company and the unrelenting advance towards the Rhine.
The operation saw the use of U.S. Army Air Corps heavy bombers in the close air support/tactical role, which was a novelty for the US. Gen. Lesley J. McNair, observing the strikes, was killed by a bomb that landed short. He was not alone. About 100 US service men were killed in this fashion on this day.
The British launched Operation Gaff, a mission designed to kill or kidnap Erwin Rommel. The six man SAS unit would learn three days later that Rommel had been wounded and then advanced on foot to American lines.
The Battle of Auvere in Estonia ended with a German victory. The Battle of Verrières Ridge in France likewise did.
Goebbels was named "Reich Plenipotentiary for the Total War Effort". He cancelled vacation leave for women involved in war related work on the same day.
A dismantled V2 rocket captured by the Polish Resistance was flown out of occupied Poland to London.
Last edition:
Monday, July 24, 1944. Marines land on Tinian.
Friday, July 25, 1924. Speeding the game up.
Greece announced it was expelling 50,000 Armenians.
The British communist journal Workers Weekley urged British troops to turn the weapons on their "oppressors" in the event of a war.
American League president Ban Johnson ordered umpires to speed baseball games up by cutting trivial arguments about balls and strikes down and by limiting the time that players inspected balls.
Azem Galica, Albanian nationalist, died of wounds causing the collapse of the the ethnic Albanian rebellion that sought to unite Kosovo with Albania.
Frontier Days for 1924 was wrapping up.
Last edition:
Saturday, July 19, 1924. Birth of Stan Hathaway.
Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1960s, 1967, 1970s, 1975, Argentina, Catholic, Christianity, Nebraska, Personalities, Poverty, Protestant, religion, World War Two, Wyoming
Tuesday, July 25, 1899. The Great Meet of the Newboys.
I haven't been covering it, but the summer of 1899 featured the Newsboy Strike in New York City, which was directed at the Hearst newspapers.
July 25, 1899: “Great Meet of Newsboys”
It was not the only newsboy strike in US history, but it is remarkable as a youth lead labor strike.
Last edition:
Friday, July 21, 1899. Ernest Hemingway born.
Wednesday, July 24, 2024
Wednesday, July 24, 1974. United States v. Nixon.
I wonder what the current court would do?
The Greek military junta resigned in favor of former Premier Konstantinos Karamanlis who immediately granted amnesty to political prisoners.
The Huntsville Prison siege began in Huntsville, Texas.
Last edition:
Sunday, July 21, 1974. Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli no, Turkish misidentification.
Labels: 1970s, 1974, Arabs, boats and ships, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Greek Army, Israel, Petroleum, Turkey, Turkish Air Force, Turkish Army, Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Turkish Navy
Monday, July 24, 1944. Marines land on Tinian.
The U.S. Army took Saint-Lô.
Marines landed on Tinian in the Marianas. The landings featured the use of napalm, the first time it had been used in the Pacific.
Unsuccessful so far, the Red Army commenced another Narva Offensive. The Red Army captured Lubin and overran the location of the Majdanek Concentration Camp.
Operation Cobra, the planned American offensive designed to break out of the bocage country, was postponed for 24 hours due to bad weather.
The RAF damaged the U-239 in an air raid on Kiel, and she never returned to service.
Last edition:
Sunday, July 23, 1944. The Lwów Uprising
Sunday, July 23, 1774. A meeting in Savannah.
Supporters of American independence held a rally in Savannah, Georgia at Tondee’s Tavern.
Last edition:
Thursday, July 21, 1774. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Sunday, July 23, 1944. The Lwów Uprising
The Lwów Uprising by the Polish Home Army began. The uprising was a success in that it took large portions of the city as the Soviets arrived, but a failure in that the Soviets arrested the political leadership of the city, and then conscripted or arrested the Polish combatants.
The Red Army took Pskov, the last major town of the prewar USSR to be liberated, meaning that the Soviets were now fighting off of their soil, for the most part.
The last inmates at Treblinka were murdered.
The SS launched a manhunt for members of the July 20 plot.
The Canadian First Army became operational in Normandy.
US troops outside of Saint-Lô. The soldier closest to the camera is a NCO, identifiable by the horizontal stripe on his helmet, and is carrying a M3 "Grease Gun".
Last edition:
Saturday, July 22, 1944. Changes in governments.
Thursday, July 23, 1874. Custer on Inyan Kara.
Last edition:
Monday, July 22, 2024
Saturday, July 22, 1944. Changes in governments.
Resing tank crewman, Normandy. July 22, 1944.
We start today with some items Sarah Sundin has already noted in her blog:
Today in World War II History—July 22, 1944
Operation Goodwood concludes near Caen with limited results, and the US began initial support operations for Operation Cobra.
The Moscow controlled Polish Committee of National Liberation was established in Chelm.
The Red Army closed the Brody Pocket in Ukraine, capturing 17,000 German troops. The Red Army also took Panevezys, Lithuania.
The Red Army overran the Majdanek concentration camp, the first concentration camp to be liberated by Allied forces.
The first all fighter aircraft shuttle mission occurred with July 22, 1944 Italian based U.S. P-38 Lightning's and P-51 Mustangs of Fifteenth Air Force attacking German airfields at Bacau and Zilistea, Romania and flying on to Soviet territory.
The Germans began cancelling the construction of new U-boats as well as the repair of existing ones.
Arrests continued due to the July 20, plot.
The Poles took Castelfiorentino and Tavernelle, Italy.
The USS Bailey shelled positions on Tinian.
The US Army Air Force raided Japanese positions in Shanghai.
Bretton Woods concluded.
Last edition:
Friday, July 21, 1944. Landings on Guam.
Wednesday, July 22, 1874. Custer at what would become Custer.
The Black Hills Expedition set up camp at would later become Custer, South Dakota.
Last edition:
Monday, July 20, 1874. Custer enters Wyoming.
Sunday, July 21, 2024
The 2024 Election, Part XXII. The Populist Party v. The Democrats and the Co-opting of American Populism. The sic transit gloria mundi et reductio ad absurdum edition. Hawk tuah.
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.
I have come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interrèd with their bones.
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar.
July 17, 2024
The Republican National Convention is into day three as of the time of this writing. It's a populist party now, and as others have been pointing out, it's shedding values, as all populist movements do, as rapidly as it once claimed them.
Populist movements are famously shallow, having no real political thesis behind them other than that the "will of the people" is right, because it must be. For this reason, they're also nearly universally co opted in the end by other movements. The American Populist movement of the late 19th Century was absorbed by the Progressive movement, which had a real thesis behind it. American Populist who hadn't been absorbed by first the Republicans of the Theodore Roosevelt era or by Democrats following the rise of Woodrow Wilson, ended up various far left wing movement of the 20s and 30s, including American Socialism and Communism, which again had a deeper thesis. The Communist road had already been laid for Populist in Russia, where populist movements against the Crown in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries ended up in revolution, with the revolution being co opted by the Bolsheviks, who again had a real thesis, and would absorb and destroy populism in their country. In the German Weimar Republic street level populsits, and they're always street level, would gravitate towards the KDP and the NADSP, with the Nazi's, which had a heavily populist element which again was amazingly think, winning out in the end. Post war debates on whether the Nazi Party was socialist or fascist miss the reality entirely, it was populist, making it the most successful populist party, in terms of gaining control of a major nation, of all times.
Because populism is shallow, in the end it only reflect the thin surface of a populace's culture, and often the worst elements of it, once it is allowed to establish itself. German populism yielded to insane racial theories and hatred and worshipped with fanatical loyalty the German Volk in the form of a single man, Adolf Hitler. Southern populism of the 20th Century had, as a claimed feature, a deep love of culture and Protestantism, but it also featured a profound prejudice against anyone who was not a white Protestant.
And so we've arrived at that point.
Donald Trump's rise was adopted by and backed by Christian Nationalist, who just held a convention within the last two weeks. Open about their desire to establish the United States as an exclusively Christian (Protestant) nation, they've seen Trump as a Cyrus the Great who is their divinely appointed ally. In the wake of last week's assassination attempt by a young registered Republican who, in numerous ways, demonstrated that he didn't know diddly about marksmanship, rank and file and more elite members of the movement have declared that Trump was saved by Devine Providence.
That may in fact be true, but it's worth remembering that Adolf Hitler was the target of 42 known assassination plots, more than one of which went right to the edge of success. It's also worth remembering that God does in fact work in mysterious ways, and God's acts don't necessarily corelate with human desires, and life may in fact be preserved for reasons we don't really grasp, but which do not necessarily equal our political goals.
At any rate, the Republican Convention in fact with numerous prayers offered by Christian clerics, including Catholic ones, who should be cautious about Christian Nationalism. But it's worth noting that it also opened by a prayer from a conservative Sikh female lawyer. I'm not saying that's not admirable, but the hardcore Protestant backers of a man who last year said that he would keep out of the country people who did not adhere to "our religion" are now scrambling to suggest that this isn't contrary to their view.
And beyond that, an opening speaker was one Amber Rose, about whom I know nothing other than that she has a pornographic past and present, and who does not seem to stand for anything that MAGA populist claim to is revealing. Essentially, she evokes the very type of "wokeism" that actually did give rise to the movement in significant ways, as people instinctively reacted to what they knew to be contrary to common sense and morality.
The point, therefore, at which a populist movement is absorbed into something else has been reached. The "conservative" element of populism has been boiled out. Now the Republican Party and the Populist movement stands for one thing only, Donald Trump. Almost anything that a person thinks Trump stands for is now suspect in additional. We already know, for example, a movement which was deeply opposed to abortion in a party that had been deeply opposed to abortion, has abandoned that plank, as Trump is wishy washy on the whole thing.
Not that there weren't signs of this already.
Nearly coincident with the conference on Christian Nationalism, the "Hawk tuah Girl" rose to temporary fame regarding her TikTok interview on engaging in fellatio. Deeply antithetical to Christian morality, she showed up shortly thereafter featured in Daisy Duke's al la Playboy helicopter scene from Apocalypse Now. This past week, as already noted, the RNC gave a prime speaking slot to a pro-abortion feminist and self-proclaimed slut whose claim to fame is having sex with rappers. It turns out, accordingly, that lots of rank and file MAGA adherents don't really have a concern for traditional morality, indeed, they're okay with immorality as long as its fairly conventional, or in the case of same sex marriage, with Don Jr. claims Don Sr. has always been in favor of, in spite of what he said post Obergefell, it's become conventional as our memories only stretch back to last week.
Hawk tuah.
Well, this isn't that surprising. Much of the "Christian" and "moral" nature of the current populist was paper thin. Donald Trump is a serial polygamist who took rides on the Lolita Express. Lots of ardent populists saluting Christian Nationalism have long ignored Matthew 19:9.
Sic transit gloria mundi et reductio ad absurdum.
cont:
Influential California Congressman Adam Schiff called upon President Biden to drop out of the Presidential race.
Now that people are pass the immediate shock of the assassination attempt on Trump last week, the topic of Biden's fitness for the race is reviving.
Trump complained within the last day that Taiwan should be paying the US for the US efforts to defend it against Communist China.
cont:
Florida Group Influences Wyoming Election, ESG Rules With Chuck Gray’s Help
July 18, 2024
Reports hold that Chuck Schumer has privately told Joe Biden he should drop out.
Biden is in COVID isolation right now.
cont:
It now appears relatively certain that Joe Biden will in fact drop out of the race.
July 19, 2024
Donald Trump's acceptance speech yesterday at the Republican Convention was apparently 90 minutes long. One news outlet has claimed it was the longest acceptance speech ever. The prior record was one that he set the last time he was nominated.
AoC has gone on record being upset about efforts to remove Joe Biden, and is warning that people will want to remove Kamala Harris from the ticket as well.
I certainly hope they do.
July 20, 2024
And now for something completely different.
Monty Python.
The Trib reported that House candidate and Senatorial candidate Helling spoke in Casper at a "Politics in the Park" event. Neither man stands a chance of unseating incumbent Harriet Hageman or John Barrasso.
Helling apparently spoke on keeping Wyoming nuclear free, demonstrating that not only is he deluded about his chances of replacing Hageman, but deluded on the need to find replacements for the current coal fired power plants as well. Indeed, he's deluded about nuclear energy, about which nothing is particularly dangerous, in context.
It wasn't clear what Holtz is for, but it is clear that Wyomingites aren't going to elect an ancient retired jurist to replace a sitting Senator.
It's not that challenges could not be mounted, although they'd be unlikely to succeed. Barasso does face a serious challenger from his right. It's just that these two campaigns are, well, of the gadfly variety.
Following the Teamster's head speaking at the Republican National Convention, a challenger has announced for his seat.
July 21, 2024
This had been coming for weeks, and probably took longer than it should have.
Oh, and as Robert Reich has pointed out, Donald Trump is the oldest person to have ever been nominated for a party's candidate for Presidency.
He's old.
Would that the same scrutiny be now applied to him.
Last edition:
The 2024 Election, Part XXI. The Refusal to Face Reality Edition.
Sunday, July 21, 1974. Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Israeli no, Turkish misidentification.
The day prior, July 20, 1974, the Turks invaded Cyprus in response to the July 15, 1974 move by the Greek military junta ruling the country to annex the island to Greece which had seen a coup take place on the island, replacing Archbishop Makarios III with Greek nationalist
Greek commandos landed on the island on this day.
The USS Harwood, which later became the TCG Kocatepe.
The Turkish Air Force, in a case of mistaken identification, sank the Turkish destroyer TCG Kocatepe, and heavily damaged the Adatepe and Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak off the coast of Paphos at Cyprus. The vessels were misidentified as Greek vessels.
The Israeli cabinet voted to turn down a proposal to begin discussions with moderate Palestinian representatives to establish an independent Palestinian nation on the West Bank in exchange for Arab recognition of Israel's right to exist.
Egypt gave exclusive oil and gas prospecting rights in the Gulf of Suez to Standard Oil and the same for the Red Sea to Mobil Oil and Union Oil.
Last edition:
Saturday, July 6, 1974. Live from Lake Wobegon.
Friday, July 21, 1944. Landings on Guam.
Following up on the dramatic events of the day prior, German troops poured into Berlin.
Guderian succeeded Kurt Zeitzler, who had suffered a nervous breakdown, as Chief of Staff of the German Army.
US Marines and soldiers of the US Army commenced landing on Guam. Initial Marine landings met with very little opposition.
The Japanese mounted attacks on US positions at Aitape.
The French Expeditionary Corps was withdrawn from the line in Italy in preparation for Operation Dragoon.
The U-212 was sunk sought of Brighton by the Royal Navy.
Harry S. Truman was nominated by the Democratic Party to run as Roosevelt's Vice President for 1944.
Last edition:
Thursday, July 20, 1944. The July 20 Plot.
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