August 11th
 

480 B.C. ~ Persians under Xerxes defeated Spartans under King Leonidas in the Battle of Thermopylae. The Spartans fight to the last man.

The Battle of Thermopylae has served as an example to officers and soldiers alike of what courage and self-sacrifice could achieve. It is still remembered, almost 2,500 years later, as a classic example of virtue.

1253 ~ Death of Saint Clare of Assisi, Patron Saint of television.

1905 ~ Birthday of Erwin Chargaff, biochemist.

1919 ~ Death of Andrew Carnegie, Industrialist & Philanthropist.

1929 ~ Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs.

1950 ~ Birthday of Steve Wozniak, Computer Pioneer.

1972 ~ The last U.S. ground combat unit left South Vietnam.

1984 ~ U.S. President Reagan joked during a voice test for a paid political radio address that he had ''signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.''

1994 ~ Death of Peter Cushing, British actor.

2003 ~ NATO took over command of the peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, marking its first major operation outside Europe.

August 12th
 

1859 ~ Birthday of Katherine Lee Bates, Poet (America the Beautiful [arranged & performed by Ray Charles]).

1887 ~ Birthday of Erwin Schrödinger, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

1927 ~ Birthday of Mstislav Rostropovich, Cellist.

1953 ~ The Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb.

1960 ~ The first communications satellite, “Echo I”, was launched.

1964 ~ Death of Ian Fleming, Novelist.

1981 ~ The IBM PC was introduced.

1982 ~ Death of Henry Fonda, Actor.

2002 ~ The Russian submarine Kursk sank in the Barents Sea.

2004 ~ New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey came out of the closet at the press conference when he announced his resignation from the office.

August 13th
 

1521 ~ Tenochtitlán, present day Mexico City, fell to conquistador Hernán Cortés.

1860 ~ Birthday of Annie Oakley, Sharpshooter.

1899 ~ Birthday of Alfred Hitchcock, Director.

1910 ~ Death of Florence Nightingale, English nurse.

1942 ~ Walt Disney's animated cartoon "Bambi" premiered.

1946 ~ Death of H. G. Wells, Writer.

1961 ~ The Berlin Wall began to be built.

1966 ~ Beginning of China’s Cultural Revolution.

1973 ~ Birthday of Brittany Andrews, Porn Actress.

1997 ~ The popular, controversial animated series "South Park" debuted.

August 14th
 

1862 ~ Birthday of Ernest Thayer, Poet (Casey at the Bat).

1880 ~ After 632 years, Cologne Cathedral was completed.

1945 ~ Japan surrendered, ending World War II.

1947 ~ Birthday of Maddy Prior, English folk singer.

1971 ~ Rod Stewart released "Maggie May".

1980 ~ Workers went on strike at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk, Poland, in a job action that resulted in the creation of the Solidarity labor movement.

1985 ~ Birthday of Ashlynn Brooke, Porn Actress.

1988 ~ Death of Enzo Ferrari, Automobile Designer.

1994 ~ Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal, was captured.

2003 ~ A blackout hit the northeastern U.S. and part of Canada; 50 million people lost power.

August 15th
 

778 ~ The Battle of Roncevaux Pass, in which Roland was killed.

1769 ~ Birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte, general and politician.

1877 ~ Thomas Edison made the first-ever recording - "Mary Had a Little Lamb".

1890 ~ Birthday of Jacques Ibert, French Composer.

1945 ~ The Allies proclaimed V-J Day, one day after Japan agreed to surrender unconditionally.

1947 ~ India and Pakistan became independent from British rule.

1948 ~ Republic of Korea established south of 38th Parallel.

1964 ~ Birthday of Melinda French Gates, wife of Bill Gates.

1967 ~ Death of René Magritte, Surrealist painter.

1969 ~ First day of Woodstock Music and Art Festival.

August 16th
 

1858 ~ President Buchanan inaugurated the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria.

1888 ~ Birthday of Lawrence of Arabia.

1899 ~ Death of Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, chemist (Bunsen Burner).

1930 ~ First color sound cartoon, called Fiddlesticks, was made by Ub Iwerks.

1954 ~ The first edition of Sports Illustrated was published.

1962 ~ The Beatles fired Pete Best and replaced him with Ringo Starr.

1977 ~ Death of Elvis Presley, Singer, Actor.

1981 ~ Birthday of Taylor Rain, Porn Actress.

2000 ~ Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Vice President Al Gore for president.

2003 ~ Death of Idi Amin, Ugandan dictator.

August 17th
 

1601 ~ Birthday of Pierre de Fermat, Mathematician.

1943 ~ The US Army Air Force had its wrist slapped smartly with the loss of 147 B-17's shot down or damaged beyond repair during the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission

1882 ~ Birthday of Samuel Goldwyn, Hollywood producer.

1911 ~ Birthday of Mikhail Botvinnik, World Chess Champion.

1962 ~ East German border guards shot and mortally wounded 18-year-old Peter Fechter, who had attempted to cross over the Berlin Wall into the western sector.

1970 ~ Venera 7 was launched. It became the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet, Venus.

1972 ~ Birthday of Ken Ryker, Porn Actor.

1992 ~ Death of Al Parker, Porn Actor.

1998 ~ President Clinton admitted having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2008 ~ Michael Phelps became the first Olympian to win eight gold medals in the same Olympics.

1943 ~ The US Army Air Force had its wrist slapped smartly with the loss of 147 B-17's shot down or damaged beyond repair during the Schweinfurt-Regensburg mission

It made for a very expensive interruption to ball bearing production. 147 lost B-17s and injured/dead in the returned aircraft push the casualties over 1500, possibly 1800 aircrew.

August 18th
 

1227 ~ Death of Genghis Khan, Mongol leader.

1587 ~ Birthday of Virginia Dare; the first English child born in the Americas.

1774 ~ Birthday of Meriwether Lewis, Explorer.

1877 ~ Asaph Hall discovered Phobos, the moon of Pluto.

1919 ~ Death of Joseph E. Seagram, Canadian extraordinaire.

1920 ~ The 19th Amendment to US constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's right to vote.

1958 ~ Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita was published in the U.S.

1963 ~ James Meredith became the first black to graduate from the University of Mississippi.

1969 ~ Jimi Hendrix played the unofficial last day of Woodstock.

1991 ~ Downfall of the Soviet Union: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev was put under house arrest while he was vacationing in the Crimea.

The Battle of Long Tan

The newly arrived 1st Australian Task Force established its Phuoc Tuy operations base in 1966 at Nui Dat, a piece of high ground surrounded by rubber plantations.


The Viet Cong had achieved dominion in the province and decided to inflict a politically unacceptable defeat on the Australians. Their plan was to lure the Australians from their base by firing recoilless rifle and mortar shells into it. They theorised that the Australians would sweep the area around the base in an attempt to stop the attacks, and the Viet Cong would ambush the sweeping forces.

On the night of 16/17 August 1966, the Viet Cong fired a barrage of shells into Nui Dat, wounding 24 Australians. Prior to this event, the Australians had become aware, from radio intercepts and sightings, that a large enemy force was operating close to the base. Australian patrols sent out specifically to find the Viet Cong had not encountered the force.

On 18 August 1966 D Company of 6RAR was patrolling in the area of the Long Tan rubber plantation when, at about 3.15pm, the lead platoon (11 Platoon, commanded by 2Lt Gordon Sharp, a national serviceman) encountered a small group of Viet Cong who fled leaving one of their number killed by the Australians. The aggressive patrolling continued until, at about 4.08pm, the main body of the Viet Cong 275 Regiment was encountered. The Viet Cong attacked vigorously with mortars, rifle and machine gun fire.



In pouring rain, the Australians returned fire with platoon weapons and artillery which was firing from the Nui Dat base, some five kilometres to the west. Close air support was also called for but couldn't be used because the target was unable to be identified accurately in the conditions.

At 5pm D Company's commander, Major Harry Smith, radioed for ammunition resupply. Two RAAF Iroquois helicopters which happened to be at Nui Dat to transport a concert party were tasked and flew at tree top level into the battle area where they successfully delivered the sorely needed boxes of ammunition.

The combination of aggressive fire from D Company soldiers plus devastating artillery fire from Nui Dat had swung the battle in the Australians' favour but the Viet Cong continued to manoeuvre to gain the upper hand. Meanwhile, A Company of 6RAR had been ordered to move to the support of the beleaguered D Company.





They did so mounted in armoured personnel carriers from 1st APC Squadron which forded a flooded stream and then shortly afterward encountered a substantial enemy force. 2 Platoon of A Company dismounted and advanced on the enemy who fled.

Although the Viet Cong could still be seen massing in failing light at 6.55pm as the relief force arrived in the D Company area, the enemy force melted away as darkness descended. The battle of Long Tan was over.

The Australians consolidated their position for the night and then commenced evacuation of their wounded using the lights from APCs to guide in helicopters. During the night the Viet Cong cleared many of their wounded and dead from the battle field. A number of the wounded Australians lay there all through the long terrifying night, as the Viet Cong moved around them.

Morning revealed that the Viet Cong force, estimated at 2,500, had been badly mauled. 245 Viet Cong bodies were found in the battle area. It was apparent that the Viet Cong commanders had failed to appreciate the effectiveness of artillery fire and had paid dearly as a result.

The Australians had lost 18 killed, 17 from D Company (including the young platoon commander of 11 platoon) and one from 1st APC Squadron, and 24 wounded.

The above account has been compiled primarily from information contained in Diggers - From 6 June 1944 to 1994 by George Odgers.

Very cool! That has a reality independent of American prime time news reporting

August 19th
 

1881 ~ Birthday of George Enescu, Romanian composer.

1921 ~ Birthday of Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek.

1934 ~ The creation of the position Führer approved in a German plebiscite.

1967 ~ Death of Hugo Gernsback, "The Father of Magazine Science Fiction". Although few now know him, the annual Science Fiction Achievement awards are named the "Hugos" in his honor.

1942 ~ About 6,000 Canadian and British soldiers launched a disastrous raid against the Germans at Dieppe, France, suffering about 50 percent casualties.

1960 ~ A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage.

1977 ~ Death of Groucho Marx, Comedian & Actor.

1981 ~ Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi sent two Sukoi Su-22 fighter jets to intercept two U.S. F-14 Tomcats over the Gulf of Sidra. The American jets shot down the Libyan fighters.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. :rolleyes2

1994 ~ Death of Linus Pauling, Scientist & Peace Activist.

He was a physical chemist, among the most influential chemists of the twentieth century, and one of the most important scientists of all time. He was one of the first quantum chemists, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 for his work describing the nature of chemical bonds. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962 for his campaign against above-ground nuclear testing, becoming one of only two people to receive the Nobel Prize in more than one field, the other being Marie Curie.

2003 ~ A suicide truck bomb struck U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22, including the top U.N. envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello.

August 20th
 

1882 ~ Piotr Tchaikovsky's “1812 Overture” debuted in Moscow.

1890 ~ Birthday of H. P. Lovecraft, Horror Writer.

1940 ~ UK PM Winston Churchill paid tribute to the RAF, saying, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

1941 ~ Birthday of Slobodan Milosevic, former president of Serbia and Yugoslavia.

1948 ~ Birthday of Robert Plant, British Musician (Led Zeppelin).

1968 ~ Warsaw Pact troops and tanks invaded Czechoslovakia to end the Prague Spring of political liberalization.

1991 ~ Downfall of the Soviet Union: Estonia declared its independence from the Soviet Union.

1998 ~ The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Quebec could not legally secede from Canada without the federal government's approval.

1998 ~ The U.S. launched cruise missile attacks against alleged al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical plant in Sudan in retaliation for the August 7 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2001 ~ Death of Sir Fred Hoyle, Astronomer, Science Fiction Writer.

August 21st
 

1858 ~ The first of seven debates between U.S. Senate candidates Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas was held.

1872 ~ Birthday of Aubrey Beardsley, English Illustrator.

1904 ~ Birthday of Count Basie, Bandleader.

1936 ~ Birthday of Wilt Chamberlain, Basketball Hall of Famer.

1940 ~ Death of Leon Trotsky, exiled Russian revolutionary.

1959 ~ Hawaii was admitted as the 50th U.S. state.

1973 ~ Birthday of Sergey Brin, Co-founder of Google.

1983 ~ Philippine opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr. was murdered moments after stepping off a plane at Manila International Airport.

1986 ~ Suffocating gas erupted from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing more than 1,700.

1991 ~ A hard-line coup against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev collapsed in the face of a popular uprising led by Russian federation President Boris N. Yeltsin.

August 22nd
 

1485 ~ The Battle of Bosworth Field ended the Wars of the Roses.

1770 ~ James Cook 's expedition arrived on the east coast of Australia.

1862 ~ Birthday of Claude Debussy, Composer.

1893 ~ Birthday of Dorothy Parker, Writer & Wit .

1902 ~ Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to ride in an automobile.

1920 ~ Birthday of Ray Bradbury, science fiction author and fantasy author (Fahrenheit 451).

1962 ~ The Savannah, the world's first nuclear-powered ship, completed its maiden voyage.

1978 ~ Death of Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's founding father.

2001 ~ For the Geeks among us, a sad day. The Trojan room coffee pot is switched off for the last time.

2007 ~ On a day that will live in MLB infamy, the Baltimore Orioles were whomped by the Texas Rangers, 30 – 3! :yikes: