July 19th
 

1374 ~ Death of Petrarch, Italian Poet & early Humanist.

1692 ~ Five women were hanged following the Salem Witch Trials for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

1834 ~ Birthday of Edgar Degas, Impressionist Painter.

1848 ~ America’s first women's rights convention convened in Seneca Falls, N.Y. and "Bloomers" were introduced.

1870 ~ The Franco-Prussian war began.

1941 ~ Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign in Europe.

1947 ~ Death of Aung San, Burmese nationalist. Aung San's daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi, is now the leader of the Burmese opposition to the current military regime.

1996 ~ Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was forced out of office.

2003 ~ Death of Bill Bright, evangelist, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.

2008 ~ Death of Anastasia Blue, Porn Actress.

July 20th
 

1933 ~ In London, 500,000 marched against anti-Semitism.

1938 ~ Birthday of Dame Diana Rigg, Actress (The Avengers, In This House of Brede).

1938 ~ Birthday of Natalie Wood, Actress (Rebel Without a Cause, West Side Story).

1944 ~ Adolf Hitler was slightly wounded when a bomb exploded at his Rastenburg headquarters.

1946 ~ The U.S. House of Representatives voted 265-79 to put control of atomic energy in the hands of a civilian body, the Atomic Energy Commission, rather than leave the military in control.

1960 ~ Ceylon elected Sirimavo Bandaranaike Prime Minister, the world's first female head of government.

1969 ~ Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin became the first men to walk on the Moon.

1974 ~ Turkey invaded Cyprus.

1999 ~ After 38 years at the bottom of the Atlantic, astronaut Gus Grissom's Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule was lifted to the surface.

2004 ~ The UN General Assembly passed a resolution demanding that Israel tear down the barrier it was building to seal off the West Bank.

42 years since the Eagle landed in Tranquility. Seems like yesterday.

July 21st
 

1899 ~ Birthday of Ernest Hemingway , American Author.

1861 ~ First Battle of Bull Run - the first major battle of the American Civil War began.

1911 ~ Birthday of Marshall McLuhan, Canadian Communications Theorist.

1925 ~ In Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher John Scopes was found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100.

1948 ~ Birthday of Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam), English Singer.

1954 ~ France surrendered North Vietnam to the Viet Minh.

1970 ~ The Aswan High Dam in Egypt was completed at the end of eleven years of construction

1994 ~ Tony Blair was declared the winner of the leadership election of the British Labour Party.

1998 ~ Death of Alan Shepard , Astronaut.

2006 ~ Death Ta Mok, Khmer Rouge war criminal.

July 22nd
 

1822 ~ Birthday of Br. Gregor Mendel, Austrian Geneticist.

1887 ~ Birthday of Gustav Hertz, German Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1925.

1898 ~ Birthday of Alexander Calder, American Artist.

1933 ~ Wiley Post became the first man to fly solo around the world.

1934 ~ John Dillinger was shot to death by FBI agents in Chicago.

1967 ~ Death of Carl Sandburg, Poet.

1977 ~ Deng Xiaoping returned to Chinese Government.

1992 ~ Pablo Escobar, fearing extradition to the U.S., escaped from his luxury prison.

2003 ~ Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were killed when U.S. forces stormed a villa in Mosul, Iraq.

2005 ~ Death of Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian electrician.

July 23rd
 

1892 ~ Birthday of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.

1914 ~ Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Francis Ferdinand.

1942 ~ The Treblinka extermination camp opened.

1952 ~ Creation of the European Coal and Steel community. This gave birth to European Economic Community (EEC), which itself later became the European Union.

1962 ~ Telstar relayed the first live trans-Atlantic television signal.

1973 ~ Birthday of Monica Lewinsky, White House intern.

1982 ~ The International Whaling Commission voted a moratorium on commercial whaling by 1985-86.

1984 ~ Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign her title, because of nude photographs published in Penthouse magazine.

1986 ~ Prince Andrew, Duke of York married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey.

2002 ~ Death of Leo McKern , Australian actor, and one of my favorites.

2002 ~ Death of Leo McKern , Australian actor, and one of my favorites.

. . . and the judge said to the prisoner, "Before I pass sentence upon you, is there anything you wish to say?"

The prisoner replied, "Bugger all Your Worship."

The Judge looked at his soliciter and said, "What did he say?"

"He said 'Bugger all Your Worship'."

"Funny, I could have sworn I saw his lips move."


Rumpole was great.

July 24th
 

1783 ~ Birthday of Simón Bolívar, South American liberator.

1898 ~ Birthday of Amelia Earhart, American Aviatrix.

1924 ~ The World Chess Federation, FIDE, was founded in Paris.

1943 ~ The RAF Bomber Command bombed Hamburg by night, USAAF 8th Air Force Bomber Command by day. By the end of the operation, 9,000 tons of explosive & incendiary bombs created a firestorm which killed more than 30,000 people and destroyed 280,000 buildings.

1948 ~ Marvin the Martian made his first appearance.

1959 ~ Khrushchev and Nixon had a war of words in the “Kitchen Debate”.

1967 ~ During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declared in Montreal "Vive le Québec libre!" (Long live free Quebec!). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians.

1974 ~ Death of James Chadwick, English physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1935.

1980 ~ Birthday of Gauge, Porn Star.

1980 ~ Death of Peter Sellers, Actor.

July 25th
 

1834 ~ Death of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, English poet. (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner & Kubla Khan )

1907 ~ Korea became a protectorate of Japan.

1917 ~ Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax in Canada as a "temporary" measure (lowest bracket is 4% and highest is 25%).

1848 ~ Birthday of Arthur Balfour, UK PM, remembered for issuing the British declaration of support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

1946 ~ Crossroads Baker, a 21-kiloton nuclear weapon was detonated underwater in the lagoon of Bikini atoll.

1956 ~ 51 people died when the Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm.

1976 ~ Birthday of Tera Patrick, Porn Actress.

1978 ~ Louise Brown, the first baby conceived by in-vitro fertilization, was born in Oldham, England.

1984 ~ Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.

2000 ~ An Air France Concorde crashed just after takeoff from Paris, killing 113.

1956 ~ 51 people died when the Italian liner Andrea Doria collided with the Swedish ship Stockholm.


Not an early expression of the Stockholm Syndrome.

July 26th
 

1856 ~ Birthday of George Bernard Shaw, Author, Playwright, awarded t he Nobel Prize in Literature 1925.

1882 ~ Richard Wagner's "Parsifal" premiered at Bayreuth.

1898 ~ Birthday of Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft engineer and designer.

1928 ~ Birthday of Stanley Kubrick, Movie Director.

1943 ~ Birthday of Mick Jagger, English Musician. (Rolling Stones)

1947 ~ U.S. President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act into law creating the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the National Security Council.

1953 ~ Fidel Castro’s Cuban Revolution began.

1956 ~ Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal sparking international condemnation.

1973 ~ Birthday of Vaniity, Tanssexual Porn Actress.

1991 ~ Paul Reubens, aka Pee Wee Herman, was arrested for allegedly masturbating at a Sarasota, Florida adult theatre.

1973 ~ Birthday of Vaniity, Tanssexual Porn Actress.

It's nice to see an actress with a nice tan.

July 27th
 

1904 ~ Birthday of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Writer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1946 ~ Death of Gertrude Stein, American Writer & Cult Figure.

1949 ~ Initial flight of the de Havilland Comet, the first jet-powered airliner.

1953 ~ The Korean War stopped. The U.S., People's Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea signed an armistice agreement.

1974 ~ The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee voted to recommend the first article of impeachment against President Nixon: Obstruction of Justice.

1980 ~ Death of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran.

1984 ~ Death of James Mason, English actor.

1990 ~ Belarus declared independence from the Soviet Union.

2002 ~ Ukraine airshow disaster.

2003 ~ Death of Bob Hope, English-born Entertainer.

July 28th
 

1741 ~ Death of Antonio Vivaldi, Italian Composer.

1750 ~ Death of Johann Sebastian Bach, German Composer.

1794 ~ Maximilien Robespierre, a leading figure of the French Revolution, was sent to the guillotine.

1866 ~ Birthday of Beatrix Potter, English Author. (The Tale of Peter Rabbit)

1868 ~ The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed Congress, which integrated Due Process & Equal Protection into the constitution.

1904 ~ Birthday of Pavel Cherenkov, Soviet Physicist, awarded one third the Nobel Prize in Physics 1958.

1914 ~ World War I began as Austria declared war on Serbia.

1996 ~ The remains of a prehistoric man, Kennewick Man, was discovered near Kennewick, Washington.

1998 ~ Monica Lewinsky was given blanket immunity from prosecution in exchange for grand jury testimony in the investigation of her relationship with President Bill Clinton.

2004 ~ Death of Professor Francis Harry Compton Crick, awarded one third the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 for his contributions towards understanding the role of DNA in genetics.

July 29th
 

1905 ~ Birthday of Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General. Awarded the The Nobel Peace Prize 1961.

1907 ~ Sir Robert Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts movement with the first scout camp at Brownsea Island. :thumb:

1958 ~ The U.S. Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1969 ~ Birthday of Adele Stevens, English porn star.

1974 ~ Death of Mama Cass Elliot, Musician.

1975 ~ Death of James Blish, Science Fiction Writer.

1981 ~ Lady Diana Spencer married Charles, Prince of Wales.

1993 ~ The Israeli Supreme Court acquitted Nazi camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges.

1996 ~ The child protection portion of the Communications Decency Act was struck down as too broad in U.S. federal court.

2005 ~ Astronomers Brown, Trujillo, and Rabinowitz announced their discovery of Eris.

July 30th
 

1729 ~ The city of Baltimore was founded.

1792 ~ The French national anthem ''La Marseillaise'' by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, was first sung in Paris.

1818 ~ Birthday of Emily Brontë, English Novelist.

1898 ~ Birthday of Henry Moore, Sculptor.

1941 ~ Birthday of Paul Anka, Singer and Composer.

1945 ~ World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sank the USS Indianapolis.

1966 ~ England won the first televised Football World Cup, beating Germany 4 to 2.

2003 ~ The last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle manufactured in Mexico.

2006 ~ After 42 years, the BBC show "Top of the Pops" was broadcast for the last time.

2007 ~ Death of Ingmar Bergman, Swedish director.

July 31st
 

1886 ~ Death of Franz Liszt, Hungarian Composer.

1912 ~ Birthday of Milton Friedman, awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, 1976.

1917 ~ The Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) started in Flanders. With casualties from both sides exceeding 550,000, the name Passcheddaele has come to be used as a synonym for pointless slaughter.

"...I died in Hell
(they called it Passchendaele) my wound was slight
and I was hobbling back; and then a shell
burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell
into the bottomless mud, and lost the light"

Siegfried Sassoon

1941 ~ Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."

1964 ~ Ranger program: Ranger 7 sent back the first close-up photographs of the moon.

1965 ~ Birthday of J. K. Rowling, Author.

1970 ~ The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.

1991 ~ Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed in Moscow.

1999 ~ NASA intentionally crashed the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.

2001 ~ Death of Poul Anderson, Science Fiction author (Tau Zero).

Tau Zero.

It should be required reading.

August 1st
 

10 B.C. ~ Birthday of Claudius, Roman Emperor.

1774 ~ The element oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley.

1779 ~ Birthday of Birthday of Francis Scott Key, Composer of “The Star-Spangled Banner”.

1834 ~ Slavery was abolished in the British Empire.

1932 ~ Birthday of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1936 ~ The Summer Olympic Games opened in Berlin.

1944 ~ Anne Frank made the last entry in her diary.

1957 ~ The United States and Canada formed the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1977 ~ Death of Gary Powers, Spy Plane Pilot.

2005 ~ Death of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia.

August 2nd
 

216 B.C. ~ Hannibal destroyed the double Consular Roman army of Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Publius Terentius Varro in the Battle of Cannae.

1776 ~ Delegates to the Continental Congress began to sign the Declaration of Independence.

1876 ~ Death of James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok, Gunfighter.

1921 ~ Death of Enrico Caruso, Italian Tenor.

1932 ~ Birthday of Peter O'Toole, Actor. (Lawrence of Arabia, The Lion in Winter).

1934 ~ Adolf Hitler becomes Führer of Germany.

1939 ~ Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

1964 ~ Gulf of Tonkin Incident – North Vietnamese gunboats allegedly fire on U.S. destroyers.

1976 ~ Death of Fritz Lang, Film Director (Metropolis, M, Frau im Mond).

1990 ~ Iraq invaded Kuwait, leading to the Gulf War.

August 3rd
 

1900 ~ Birthday of John T. Scopes, defendant in the “Monkey Trial”.

1904 ~ Birthday of Clifford D. Simak, Science Fiction Author.

1924 ~ Death of Joseph Conrad, Author. (Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim)

1924 ~ Birthday of Leon Uris, American Writer. (Exodus, QB VII)

1943 ~ Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice.

1948 ~ Whittaker Chambers, a former Communist, publicly accused former State Department official Alger Hiss of having been part of a Communist underground.

1958 ~ The USS Nautilus traveled beneath the Arctic ice cap.

1972 ~ U.S. Senate ratified the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

2003 ~ The U.S. Anglican Church approved the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.

2008 ~ Death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature 1970.

August 4th
 

1782 ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber.

1840 ~ Birthday of Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sexologist.

1875 ~ Death of Hans Christian Andersen, Writer.

1901 ~ Birthday of Louis Armstrong, Jazz Musician.

1914 ~ The UK declared war on Germany.

1961 ~ Birthday of President Obama.

1964 ~ The bodies of three missing civil rights workers were found buried in an earthen dam in Mississippi.

1977 ~ President Carter signed legislation creating the U.S. Department of Energy.

1991 ~ The cruise ship Oceanos sinks off the coast of South Africa.

2000 ~ Death of Leslie Glass, Porn Actress.

August 5th
 

1885 ~ The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid.

1962 ~ Death of Marilyn Monroe, Actress.

1962 ~ Nelson Mandela imprisoned, not to be released until 1990.

1963 ~ The U.S., UK, and U.S.S.R. signed a nuclear test ban treaty.

1973 ~ Arab gunmen opened fire and threw grenades into a passenger lounge at Athens airport.

1980 ~ Birthday of Kaylani Lei, Porn Actress.

1981 ~ The federal government began firing air traffic controllers who had gone on strike.

1984 ~ Death of Richard Burton, Actor.

1987 ~ Birthday of Lexi Belle, Porn Actress.

2000 ~ Death of Sir Alec Guinness, Actor.

August 6th
 

1809 ~ Birthday of Alfred Lord Tennyson, Poet.

1881 ~ Birthday of Alexander Fleming, awarded he Nobel Prize in Medicine 1945.

1911 ~ Birthday of Lucille Ball, Actress, Comedienne.

1943 ~ Birthday of Jon Postel, creator of DNS.

1945 ~ A nuclear bomb codenamed Little Boy was dropped on the city of Hiroshima.

1961 ~ Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov spent a day in orbit.

1965 ~ U.S. release of the Beatles’ album "Help!".

1972 ~ Birthday of Geri Halliwell, British Pop Singer (Spice Girls).

1990 ~ The UN Security Council ordered a global trade embargo against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

1991 ~ Tim Berners-Lee released his idea for the "World Wide Web".

August 7th
 

1560 ~ Birthday of Elizabeth Bathory, serial killer.

1867 ~ Birthday of Mata Hari (Margaretha Zelle), spy.

1942 ~ Birthday of Garrison Keillor, radio host.

1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft "Kon-Tiki", arrived at the Tuamotu Islands after a 101 day 4,300 mile journey across the Pacific Ocean, proving that pre-historic peoples could have traveled from South America.

1957 ~ Death of Oliver Hardy, Comedian & Actor.

1964 ~ U.S. Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, giving President Johnson broad powers to deal with reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. forces.

1966 ~ Birthday of Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.

1974 ~ French stuntman Philippe Petit walked a tightrope strung between the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.

1978 ~ President Carter declared a federal emergency at Love Canal.

1998 ~ Bombing of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya that killed 224 people and injured over 4,500.

August 8th
 

1879 ~ Birthday of Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolutionary.

1902 ~ Birthday of P.A.M. Dirac, Physicist, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 1933.

1931 ~ Birthday of Roger Penrose, British physicist .

1937 ~ Birthday of Dustin Hoffman, Actor (The Graduate, Tootsie, Kramer vs. Kramer).

1945 ~ The U.S. ratified the United Nations Charter.

1963 ~ Britain's ''Great Train Robbery'' took place when thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.

1966 ~ The Beatles' released "Revolver”

1974 ~ U.S. President Nixon announced his resignation effective August 9.

1988 ~ U.N. Secretary-General Cuellar announced a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq.

1996 ~ Death of Frank A Whittle, inventor of the Jet engine.

August 9th
 

1173 ~ Construction of the (Leaning) Tower of Pisa began.

1483 ~ Opening of the Sistine Chapel.

1842 ~ The U.S.-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains was defined.

1945 ~ A nuclear bomb codenamed Fat Man was dropped on the city of Nagasaki.

1962 ~ Death of Hermann Hesse, German-born writer, awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature.

1969 ~ Members of a cult led by Charles Manson murdered five people including Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring and, Abigail Folger.

1975 ~ Death of Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer.

1986 ~ The Headington Shark was erected in Oxford.

1995 ~ Death of Jerry Garcia, guitarist: Grateful Dead.

2006 ~ Death of James van Allen, American physicist.

August 10th
 

1519 ~ Ferdinand Magellan's 5 ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe.

1675 ~ Foundation stone set of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.

1846 ~ The Smithsonian Institution was chartered following a $500,000 donation by scientist Joseph Smithson.

1896 ~ Death of Otto Lilienthal, Aviation Pioneer.

1945 ~ Death of Robert Goddard, Rocket Scientist.

1988 ~ A distressing reminder of my mortality.

1990 ~ The Magellan space probe arrived at Venus.

1995 ~ Norma McCorvey, '”Jane Roe” in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which legalized abortion, announced she had joined the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

2003 ~ Yuri Ivanovich Malenchenko became the first man to marry in space.

2008 ~ Death of Isaac Hayes, Musician & Actor.

Two Magellan items in sharing the same day. Wow! What are the odds. 1519 and 1990. :thumbs:

1519 and 1990.

Does that put the odds at one in 3509?

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.