Today in history, Dec 4th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on December 4th!

Today in history facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.

http://hankeringforhistory.com/2012/12/04/today-in-history-dec-4th/

771	With the death of his brother Carloman, Charlemagne becomes sole ruler of the Frankish Empire.
1783	Gen. George Washington said farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in New York.
1816	James Monroe of Virginia was elected the fifth president of the United States.
1861	The U.S. Senate, voting 36 to 0, expels Senator John C. Brekinridge of Kentucky because of his joining the Confederate Army.
1861	Queen Victoria of Britain forbids the export of gunpowder, firearms and all materials for their production.
1862	Winchester, Va., falls into Union hands, resulting in the capture of 145 Southern soldiers.
1863	Seven solid days of bombardment ends at Charleston, S.C. The Union fires some 1,307 rounds.
1872	The U.S. brigantine Marie Celeste is found adrift and deserted with its cargo intact, in the Atlantic Ocean between the Azores and Portugal.
1900	The French National Assembly, successor to the States-General, rejects Nationalist General Mercier’s proposal to plan an invasion of England.
1914	The first Seaplane Unit formed by the German Navy officially comes into existence and begins operations from Zeebrugge, Belgium.
1918	France cancels trade treaties in order to compete in the postwar economic battles.
1918	President Woodrow Wilson set sail for France to attend the Versailles peace conference.
1941	Operation Taifun (Typhoon), which was launched by the German armies on October 2, 1941, as a prelude to taking Moscow, is halted because of freezing temperatures and lack of serviceable aircraft.
1942	U.S. bombers struck the Italian mainland for the first time in World War II.
1945	The Senate approved U.S. participation in the United Nations.
1950	The University of Tennessee defies court rulings by rejecting five Negro applicants.
1952	The Grumman XS2F-1 makes its first flight.
1959	Peking pardons Pu Yi, ex-emperor of China and of the Japanese puppet-state of Manchukuo.
1978	Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco’s first woman mayor when she was named to replace George Moscone, who had been assassinated.
1980	The rock group Led Zeppelin announced it was disbanding after the death in September of drummer John Bonham.
1980	The bodies of four American nuns slain in El Salvador two days earlier were unearthed. (Five national guardsmen were later convicted of murder.)
1981	President Ronald Reagan broadens the power of the CIA by allowing spying in the United States.
1985	Robert McFarland resigns as National Security Advisor. Admiral John Poindexter is named to succeed.
1991	The last American hostages held in Lebanon are released.
1992	President George H.W. Bush ordered American troops to lead a mercy mission to Somalia, threatening military action against warlords and gangs who were blocking food for starving millions.
1995	The first NATO troops landed in the Balkans to begin setting up a peace mission.
2000	A Florida state judge refused to overturn Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida, and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.
2001	The United States froze the financial assets of organizations allegedly linked to the terrorist group Hamas.
2006	Lacking the Senate votes to keep his job, embattled U.N. Ambassador John Bolton offered his resignation to President George W. Bush, who accepted it.

Today in history, Dec 1st!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on December 1st!

Today in history facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.

http://hankeringforhistory.com/2012/12/01/today-in-history-dec-1st/

1581	Edmund Champion and other Jesuit martyrs are hanged at Tyburn, England, for sedition, after being tortured.
1824	The House of Representatives convened to decide the presidential election because no candidate had received a majority in the Electoral College.
1861	The U.S. gunboat Penguin seizes the Confederate blockade runner Albion carrying supplies worth almost $100,000.
1862	President Abraham Lincoln sent his Second Annual Message to Congress, which was read aloud by the Secretary of the Senate. In it, Lincoln called for the abolition of slavery, saying that “in giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free,”
1863	Belle Boyd, a Confederate spy, is released from prison in Washington.
1881	Virgil, Wyatt and Morgan Earp are exonerated in court for their action in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Ariz.
1900	Kaiser Wilhelm II refuses to meet with Boer leader Paul Kruger in Berlin.
1905	Twenty officers and 230 guards are arrested in St. Petersburg, Russia, for the revolt at the Winter Palace.
1908	The Italian Parliament debates the future of the Triple Alliance and asks for compensation for Austria’s action in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1909	President William Howard Taft severs official relations with Nicaragua’s Zelaya government and declares support for the revolutionaries.
1913	The first drive-in automobile service station opened, in Pittsburgh.
1916	King Constantine of Greece refuses to surrender to the Allies.
1918	An American army of occupation enters Germany.
1919	Lady Astor was sworn in as the first female member of the British Parliament.
1925	After a seven-year occupation, 7,000 British troops evacuate Cologne, Germany.
1933	Nazi storm troops become an official organ of the Reich.
1934	Sergei M. Kirov, the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, was assassinated as Soviet leader Josef Stalin began a massive purge that would claim tens of millions of lives.
1941	The first Civil Air Patrol is organized in the United States.
1942	National gasoline rationing goes into effect in the United States.
1969	The U.S. government held its first draft lottery since World War II.
1986	Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North pleads the 5th Amendment before a Senate panel investigating the Iran-Contra arms sale.
1991	Ukrainians voted overwhelmingly for independence from the Soviet Union.
1992	“Long Island Lolita” Amy Fisher was sentenced to prison for shooting and seriously wounding Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of her lover, Joey Buttafuoco. (Fisher served seven years.)
2000	Vicente Fox was sworn in as president of Mexico, ending 71 years of ruling-party domination.
2004	Tom Brokaw signed off for the last time as anchor of the “NBC Nightly News.”httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMxUzdep6p0&noredirect=1
2009	President Barack Obama ordered 30,000 more U.S. troops into the war in Afghanistan but promised to begin withdrawal in 18 months.

Today in history, Nov 12th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on November 12th!

1859	The first flying-trapeze circus act is performed by Jules Leotard at the Circus Napoleon.
1863	Confederate General James Longstreet arrives at Loudon, Tennessee, to assist the attack on Union General Ambrose Burnside’s troops at Knoxville.
1867	Mount Vesuvius erupts.
1903	The Lebaudy brothers of France set an air-travel distance record of 34 miles in a dirigible.
1920	Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was elected baseball’s first commissioner.
1923	Adolf Hitler is arrested for his attempted German coup.
1927	Canada is admitted to the League of Nations.
1928	The ocean liner Vestris sinks off the Virginia cape with 328 aboard, killing 111.
1938	Mexico agrees to compensate the United States for land seizures.
1941	Madame Lillian Evanti and Mary Cardwell Dawson establish the National Negro Opera Company.
1942	The World War II naval Battle of Guadalcanal began.
1944	U.S. fighters wipe out a Japanese convoy near Leyte, consisting of six destroyers, four transports and 8,000 troops.
1944	The German battleship Tirpitz is sunk in a Norwegian fjord.
1948	Former Japanese premier Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal.
1951	The U.S. Eighth Army in Korea is ordered to cease offensive operations and begin an active defense.
1954	Ellis Island closed after processing more than 20 million immigrants since opening in New York Harbor in 1892.
1960	The satellite Discoverer XVII is launched into orbit from California’s Vandenberg AFB.
1968	The U.S. Supreme Court voids an Arkansas law banning the teaching of evolution in public schools.
1971	President Richard Nixon announces the withdrawal of about 45,000 U.S. troops from Vietnam by February.
1982	Yuri V. Andropov was elected to succeed the late Leonid I. Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee.
1985	Xavier Suarez was elected Miami’s first Cuban-American mayor.
1987	Boris Yeltsin is fired as head of Moscow’s Communist Party for criticizing the slow pace of reform.
1990	Japanese Emperor Akihito formally assumed the Chrysanthemum Throne.
1997	Ramzi Yousef was found guilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
1999	President Bill Clinton signed a sweeping measure knocking down Depression-era barriers and allowing banks, investment firms and insurance companies to sell each other’s products.
2001	An American Airlines flight crashed near New York’s Kennedy airport, killing 265 people.
2004	A jury convicted Scott Peterson of murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, and dumping her body in San Francisco Bay. (Peterson was later sentenced to death.)
2009	Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the Fort Hood, Texas, massacre.
2011	The Arab League voted to suspend Syria over the country’s bloody crackdown on protesters.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.

http://hankeringforhistory.com/2012/11/12/today-in-history-nov-12th/

Weird Weapons of WW II

There are certainly several weird weapons of WW II, but I think the following video shows some of my favorites. I ran across a video the other day entitled ‘British Secret Wartime Follies.’ The caption underneath the video described the video as: “British science made some dreadful bloopers when they were give free reign to design during WWII.”

There were definitely some interesting inventions…

I have to say, the invention at 2:37, the Hajile (which used retro rockets to land supplies), looks like a primitive version of the process used with the most recent Mars landing. So maybe it wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought.

This led me to searching for other poorly designed, experimental weapons, and I ran across several weapons involving animals. Personally, I thought it was odd that the fate of the world, and the defeat of Axis, relied on animals…but what do I know?

The first one I ran across was when America wanted to attached bombs to bats and let them loose in Japan. The plan was to have the bats hide in crevices of building during the day, normal bat behavior, then BOOM! This apparently was very successful in the testing stages, but was quickly made obsolete by the atomic bomb.

You think that sacrificing bats was cruel? How about dogs?

Yep, puppies were also served up as weapons during WW II. The Soviet Union kept dogs on the brink of starvation and trained them to know that food could always be found under vehicles. By training them this way, when the dogs were released–in front of a group of advancing German tanks–the dogs would immediately look for food under the German tanks, then BOOM! The poor doggy would be sacrificed to stop a tank.

Well, that is what they thought would happen.

Unfortunately for the Soviet Union, this was not usually the case. For the most part, the dogs were scared of the tanks and usually retreated, running straight back to the Soviet lines–bombs still attached.

The last animal WW II weapon I bring before you today is the Pigeon Guided Missile. This isn’t as simple as the other two. They other two relied on basic animal instinct and training. The Pigeon Guided Missile relied on advanced technology and genius birds. Placing a pigeon inside of a missile, the pigeon would peck on levers to steer towards a certain target. The pigeon would be trained to look for certain targets and used the levers to keep the desired image focused in the cross-hair. The National Defense Research Committee was surprisingly pleased with the outcome, but ventured for superior electronics guidance systems and scrapped the Pigeon guided missiles.

http://hankeringforhistory.com/2012/11/02/weird-weapons-of-ww-ii/

Events that happened today in history, October 25th!

Some of the great historical events that happened today in history, on October 25th!

1400	Author Geoffrey Chaucer died in London.
1415	An English army under Henry V defeats the French at Agincourt, France. The French had out numbered Henry’s troops 60,000 to 12,000 but British longbows turned the tide of the battle.
1760	Britain’s King George III succeeded his late grandfather, George II.
1854	The English suffered heavy losses against Russia in the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. The battle inspired Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem “Charge of the Light Brigade.”
1856	Amasa M. Rich was born in San Bernardino, California. For more on this mayor and rancher, check out South Fork Companion.
1881	Artist Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain..
1916	German pilot Rudolf von Eschwege shoots down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.
1923	The Teapot Dome scandal comes to public attention as Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, subcommittee chairman, reveals the findings of the past 18 months of investigation. His case will result in the conviction of Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, and later Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, the first cabinet member in American history to go to jail. The scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming, involved Fall secretly leasing naval oil reserve lands to private companies.
1940	German troops capture Kharkov and launch a new drive toward Moscow.
1944	The Japanese are defeated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the world’s largest sea engagement. From this point on, the depleted Japanese Navy increasingly resorts to the suicidal attacks of Kamikaze fighters.
1950	Chinese Communist Forces launch their first-phase offensive across the Yalu River into North Korea.
1951	In a general election, England’s Labour Party loses to Conservatives. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister, and Anthony Eden becomes foreign secretary.
1954	President Eisenhower conducts the first televised Cabinet meeting.
1957	Mob chieftain Albert Anastasia was gunned down while getting a haircut in New York City. For more on this, check out This Day in Crime History.
1958	The last U.S. troops leave Beirut.
1960	Martin Luther King, Jr., is sentenced to four months in prison for a sit-in.
1962	Author John Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature.
1971	The U.N. General Assembly voted to admit mainland China and expel Taiwan.
1983	1,800 U.S. troops and 300 Caribbean troops land on Grenada. U.S. forces soon turn up evidence of a strong Cuban and Soviet presence–large stores of arms and documents suggesting close links to Cuba.
1986	The New York Mets won Game 6 of the World Series in the 10th inning when a routine ground ball went through Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs.
1987	New York Times headline–The Worlds Beneath Paris. For more on this, check out This Day in Water History.
1994	Susan Smith of Union, S.C., claimed that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. She later confessed to drowning the children and was convicted of murder.
2001	Microsoft released the Windows XP operating system.
2002	Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., 58, was killed in a plane crash in northern Minnesota.
2003	Florida State’s Bobby Bowden became the winningest coach in major college football history with his 339th victory as the Seminoles beat Wake Forest 48-24.
2005	U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached 2,000.

Today’s historical facts are from various sites including, but not limited too: the History Channel, The New York Times, WHG Historynet.com, HistoryOrb.com, and On This Day blogs from my blogroll.

 

Related articles

• Picasso’s Art Is Recovered After Half a Century of Being Hidden
• From ‘Ship to Slip: Gene Chizik Goes for the Record
• Burning Bright by John Steinbeck
• “This poem was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the ladder part of his career.”

Events that happened today in history, October 25th!