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April 29 historic events
711 Islamic conquest of Hispania: Moorish troops led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (Al-Andalus).
1903 A 30 million cubic-metre landslide kills 70 in Frank, Alberta, Canada.
1945 The Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
1946 Former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo and 28 former Japanese leaders are indicted for war crimes.
Tojo was among those convicted and executed for war crimes.
1967 After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title.
1970 Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese forces invade Cambodia to hunt Viet Cong.
1974 Watergate Scandal: President Richard Nixon announces the release of edited transcripts of White House tape recordings related to the scandal.
1975 Vietnam War: Operation Frequent Wind: The U.S. begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon prior to an expected North Vietnamese takeover. U.S. involvement in the war comes to an end.
1986 A fire at the Central library of the City of Los Angeles Public Library damages or destroys 400,000 books and other items.
“Fahrenheit 451” wasn’t just a book title in that library.
1991 A cyclone strikes the Chittagong district of southeastern Bangladesh with winds of around 155 mph, killing at least 138,000 people and leaving as many as 10 million homeless.
1992 1992 Los Angeles riots: Riots in Los Angeles, California, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 53 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
That week the rioting spread across the country to several other cities, including Atlanta, where there were several episodes.
2002 The United States is re-elected to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, one year after losing the seat that it had held for 50 years.
It has since been replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council. This is the body that commissioned the Goldstone report. Among other countries tasked with monitoring human rights across the world are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China, Russia, Pakistan, Jordan and Cuba.
2004 Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production.
2005 Syria completes withdrawal from Lebanon, ending 29 years of occupation.
April 30 historic events
1006 Supernova SN 1006, the brightest supernova in recorded history, appears in the constellation Lupus.
1492 Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration.
1563 Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI.
1789 On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first elected President of the United States.
A statue of Washington stands on that spot in lower Manhattan.
1803 Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
A great bargain, to be quite franc. Merci.
1900 Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States, with Sanford B. Dole as governor.
Dole and other rich businessmen basically stole Hawaii out from under its former king, and later, its queen.
1900 Casey Jones dies in a train wreck in Vaughn, Mississippi, while trying to make up time on the Cannonball Express.
1927 The Federal Industrial Institute for Women, opens in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women’s federal prison in the United States.
1943 World War II: Operation Mincemeat: The submarine HMS Seraph surfaces in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Spain to deposit a dead man planted with false invasion plans and dressed as a British military intelligence officer.
1947 In Nevada, the Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam a second time.
1952 Anne Frank’s diary is published in English. The British public gets the chance to read The Diary of a Young Girl, written by Anne Frank who hid from the Nazis in Holland during the war.
1956 Former Vice President and Senator Alben Barkley dies during a speech in Virginia. He collapses after proclaiming “I would rather be a servant in the house of the lord than sit in the seats of the mighty.”
1973 Watergate Scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon announces that top White House aids H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and others have resigned.
1975 Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gain control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Duong Van Minh.
1987 New York Islander Mike Bossy plays his final game.
The four-time Stanley Cup champion and hockey hall-of-famer had to retire at 30, due to a bad back.
1993 CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.
1993 The world number one women’s tennis player, Monica Seles, is stabbed in the back during a quarter-final match in Hamburg.
1995 After 120 years the last 15 A&S (Abraham and Strauss) department stores close.
2001 Chandra Levy, a federal government intern, went missing. Her remains were found more than a year later in a Washington, D.C., park.
Levy’s disapearance and her association with Congressman Gary Condit dominated headlines for months in 2001, until Sept. 11. Levy’s remains were found about a year later. The crime remains unsolved.
2008 Skeletal remains found near Ekaterinburg, Russia are confirmed by Russian scientists to be the remains of Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia and one of his sisters.
Gut Shabbos
the following op-ed was written three years ago by Charles Krauthammer. It was published on Friday, May 18, 2007.
Prelude to the Six Days
There has hardly been a Middle East peace plan in the past 40 years — including the current Saudi version — that does not demand a return to the status quo of June 4, 1967. Why is that date so sacred? Because it was the day before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in which Israel scored one of the most stunning victories of the 20th century. The Arabs have spent four decades trying to undo its consequences.
In fact, the real anniversary should be now, three weeks earlier. On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the evacuation from the Sinai Peninsula of the U.N. buffer force that had kept Israel and Egypt at peace for 10 years. The United Nations complied, at which point Nasser imposed a naval blockade of Israel’s only outlet to the south, the port of Eilat — an open act of war.
How Egypt came to this reckless provocation is a complicated tale (chronicled in Michael Oren’s magisterial “Six Days of War”) of aggressive intent compounded with miscommunication and, most fatefully, disinformation. The Soviet Union had reported urgently and falsely to its Middle East clients, Syria and Egypt, that Israel was massing troops on the Syrian border for an attack. Israel desperately tried to disprove this charge by three times inviting the Soviet ambassador in Israel to visit the front. He refused. The Soviet warnings led to a cascade of intra-Arab maneuvers that in turn led Nasser, the champion of pan-Arabism, to mortally confront Israel with a remilitarized Sinai and a southern blockade.
Why is this still important? Because that three-week period between May 16 and June 5 helps explain Israel’s 40-year reluctance to give up the fruits of that war — the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza — in return for paper guarantees of peace. Israel had similar guarantees from the 1956 Suez war, after which it evacuated the Sinai in return for that U.N. buffer force and for assurances from the Western powers of free passage through the Straits of Tiran.
All this disappeared with a wave of Nasser’s hand. During those three interminable weeks, President Lyndon Johnson did try to rustle up an armada of countries to run the blockade and open Israel’s south. The effort failed dismally.
It is hard to exaggerate what it was like for Israel in those three weeks. Egypt, already in an alliance with Syria, formed an emergency military pact with Jordan. Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco began sending forces to join the coming fight. With troops and armor massing on Israel’s every frontier, jubilant broadcasts in every Arab capital hailed the imminent final war for the extermination of Israel. “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants,” declared PLO head Ahmed Shuqayri, “and as for the survivors — if there are any — the boats are ready to deport them.”
For Israel, the waiting was excruciating and debilitating. Israel’s citizen army had to be mobilized. As its soldiers waited on the various fronts for the world to rescue the nation from its peril, Israeli society ground to a halt and its economy began bleeding to death. Army Chief of Staff Yitzhak Rabin, later to be hailed as a war hero and even later as a martyred man of peace, had a nervous breakdown. He was incapacitated to the point of incoherence by the unbearable tension of waiting with the life of his country in the balance, knowing that waiting too long would allow the armies of 100 million Arabs to strike first his country of 3 million.
We know the rest of the story. Rabin did recover in time to lead Israel to victory. But we forget how perilous was Israel’s condition. The victory hinged on a successful attack on Egypt’s air force on the morning of June 5. It was a gamble of astonishing proportions. Israel sent the bulk of its 200-plane air force on the mission, fully exposed to antiaircraft fire and missiles. Had they been detected and the force destroyed, the number of planes remaining behind to defend the Israeli homeland — its cities and civilians — from the Arab air forces’ combined 900 planes was . . . 12.
We also forget that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was entirely unsought. Israel begged King Hussein of Jordan to stay out of the conflict. Engaged in fierce combat with a numerically superior Egypt, Israel had no desire to open a new front just yards from Jewish Jerusalem and just miles from Tel Aviv. But Nasser personally told Hussein that Egypt had destroyed Israel’s air force and airfields and that total victory was at hand. Hussein could not resist the temptation to join the fight. He joined. He lost.
The world will soon be awash with 40th-anniversary retrospectives of the war — and exegeses on the peace of the ages that awaits if Israel would only to return to lines of June 4, 1967. But Israelis are cautious. They remember the terror of that June 4 and of that unbearable May when, with Israel in possession of no occupied territories whatsoever, the entire Arab world was furiously preparing Israel’s imminent extinction. And the world did nothing.
June 6 historic event (just one today)
The invasion, code named Operation Overlord, was originally scheduled to take place on June 5, but it was postponed to the second day of its two-day window because of bad weather.
For Overlord, the Allies had overwhelming air superiority. Thousands of American and British fighters, painted with distinct stripes to avoid friendly-fire accidents, patrolled over the English Channel and the French landing sites.
Despite the size of the invasion force, victory was far from assured. General Eisenhower had prepared a speech to be delivered in the event of a failed invasion.
The invasion was successful, and over the next few months Allied forces advanced into France, culminating in the liberation of Paris in late August.
Although the evil nazi regime fought on for nearly another year before it was defeated, this was the beginning of its end.
June 9 historic event
Photo finish.
Eighty-six years ago today (or was it yesterday?) George Leigh Mallory died on Mount Everest, his dream of being the first man to reach its summit unfulfilled (or was it?)
Although Mallory remains one of the most famous mountaineers in history, he did not come from an athletic family or adventurous background. His father was Reverend Herbert Leigh Mallory and his mother, Annie Mallory, was a housewife.
Mallory was bitten by the climbing bug when a teacher brought him and several schoolmates along on a mountain climbing trip.
Upon graduation, Mallory became a teacher and married Ruth Turner in 1914.
Mallory initially refused to join without Finch, but was persuaded to change his mind by the King and Prince of Wales.
George Mallory and his crew were within a couple of thousand feet of the summit by early June, 1924.
Edward Norton and T. Howard Somervell were allowed to be the first to attempt the summit. They got to within 880 feet of the summit before they had to turn back.
Team member Noel Odell was the last person to see Mallory and Irvine climbing towards the peak.
England mourned the loss of Mallory and Irvine.
Ruth Mallory never remarried.
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His rate of climb and his remaining bottled oxygen probably were insufficient to get him to the peak.
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Gilad Shalit
Four years ago today (secular calendar) on June 25, 2006, Gilad Shalit was kidnapped by hamas terrorists in a cross-border raid.
The other two members of his tank’s crew were killed in the attack.
Although Israel expended serious effort, including an invasion of Gaza, trying to rescue Gilad, they were ultimately unsuccessful.
Gilad’s cruel and merciless captors have continually refused Red Cross members or any other observers visit Gilad or verify his health.
Please continue to remember Gilad ben Aviva in your tefilos, learning and tehilim.
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15 years ago Yitzhak Rabin was shot. He later died of his injuries.
November 4th, 1980. Ronald Reagan is elected President, soundly defeating Jimmy Carter.
November 4th 1979 is also not very kind to Mr. Carter. The Iran hostage crisis started on that day when militant student followers of Khomeni stormed the US Embassy and took 90 hostages.
November 4th 2008. Barack Obama elected President 🙁
Today, Feb. 6, 2011, would have been the 100th birthday of Ronald Reagan.
Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, is still the president who (twenty-three years after leaving office and more than six years after his death) engenders the strongest pro and con opinions regarding his presidency.
His admirers believe that (among other things) he:
-fixed the economy.
-fixed the military.
-broke the Soviet Union.
His detractors believe that (among other things) he:
-caused the deficit and the mindset that has allowed it to grow until today.
-recklessly deregulated industries, which later resulted in crises that required multi-billion dollar cleanups.
Enjoy.
A people free to choose will always choose peace.
A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.
All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.
Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.
Don’t be afraid to see what you see.
Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we’ve ever known.
Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Facts are stubborn things.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under G-d is acknowledged.
Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.
Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
How can a president not be an actor?
How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.
I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph. And there’s purpose and worth to each and every life.
I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon.
I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‘fat cat’ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‘public-spirited philanthropist’.
I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.
If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.
If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under G-d, then we will be a nation gone under.
If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.
Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.
It doesn’t do good to open doors for someone who doesn’t have the price to get in. If he has the price, he may not need the laws. There is no law saying the Negro has to live in Harlem or Watts.
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.
It’s difficult to believe that people are still starving in this country because food isn’t available.
It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.
It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
Latinos are Republican. They just don’t know it yet.
Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.
Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.
Man is not free unless government is limited.
Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.
My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.
No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.
No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.
Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.
One picture is worth 1,000 denials.
One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.
Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
People do not make wars; governments do.
Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Politics is just like show business. You have a [heck] of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a [heck] of a close.
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.
Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours.
Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15.
Some people wonder all their lives if they’ve made a difference. The Marines don’t have that problem.
Status quo, you know, is Latin for ‘the mess we’re in’.
Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out.
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.
The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.
The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
The taxpayer – that’s someone who works for the federal government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination.
The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.
There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
There are no easy answers’ but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right.
There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.
Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world’s strongest economy.
To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last – but eat you he will.
Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.
Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.
Trust, but verify.
Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
Violence has been Nicaragua’s most important export to the world.
We are never defeated unless we give up on G-d.
We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.
We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.
We have the duty to protect the life of an unborn child.
We might come closer to balancing the Budget if all of us lived closer to the Commandments and the Golden Rule.
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
We should declare war on North Vietnam. We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.
We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.
We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we will always be free.
We’re in greater danger today than we were the day after Pearl Harbor. Our military is absolutely incapable of defending this country.
Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.
What we have found in this country, and maybe we’re more aware of it now, is one problem that we’ve had, even in the best of times, and that is the people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless, you might say, by choice.
When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
Without G-d, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
You can tell alot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.
You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we’re in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we’ve got to do something about the unemployed.
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On February 6, 1989, Chris Gueffroy was shot to death as he attempted to escape from East to West Berlin over the wall that Reagan had urged Gorbachev to tear down.
Gueffroy was the last person killed by the East German border guards before the wall was, indeed, torn down.
Today Feb. 6 2011
1577: King Henri de Bourbon of Navarra becomes leader of Huguenots
1626: Huguenot rebels & the French sign Peace of La Rochelle
1778: France recognizes US, signs treaty of aid in Paris; 1st US treaty
1778: England declares war on France
1788: Massachusetts becomes 6th state to ratify constitution
1815: NJ issues 1st US railroad charter (John Stevens)
1865: 2nd day of battle at Dabney’s Mills (Hatcher’s Run)
1869: Harper’s Weekly publishes 1st picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers
1891: 1st great train robbery by Dalton Gang (Southern Pacific #17)
1899: Spanish-American War ends, peace treaty ratified by Senate
one\__//goal
Today Feb. 6 2011
1577: King Henri de Bourbon of Navarra becomes leader of Huguenots
1626: Huguenot rebels & the French sign Peace of La Rochelle
1778: France recognizes US, signs treaty of aid in Paris; 1st US treaty
1778: England declares war on France
1788: Massachusetts becomes 6th state to ratify constitution
1815: NJ issues 1st US railroad charter (John Stevens)
1865: 2nd day of battle at Dabney’s Mills (Hatcher’s Run)
1869: Harper’s Weekly publishes 1st picture of Uncle Sam with chin whiskers
1891: 1st great train robbery by Dalton Gang (Southern Pacific #17)
1899: Spanish-American War ends, peace treaty ratified by Senate
one\__//goal
November 4th-
Yitzchok Rabin made his last public speech.
Dr. Pepper- I was expecting from you a “the following funny shidduch story happened on this date” post!!!
This date in history. 9 cheshvan 5752
(I know this is for secular dates but bear with me)
I was born!
7 years later (5759) my niece was born!
November 5th-
Rabbi Meir Kahane was shot and killed in a Manhattan Marriott Hotel after giving a speech.
Oh..all u googlers…
I actually remember waking up to that on the news 21 years ago.
Hey I didn’t google it! I was there! 😛 LOL
Yossi Z. – Hey! Me too! But not quite the same year . . .
Syag: it is your jewish birthday? Cool! So now there are two others (possibly three) that I know that have the same birthday as me!
Yes, but I like to call it my “real” birthday 🙂
So do I. Just wasn’t sure whether you did too. Now I know 🙂
Happy birthday Syag and yossi z.
(I think its also the birthday of a friend. Must be popular.)
80 years ago today the Bayonne Bridge opened to traffic.
(There were parades across the bridge the day before.)
When opened it was the longest steel arch bridge in the world.
You can go on Matzav.com to see stuff that happened in the history of KLAL YISRAEL. Today (the 18th of Chesvan – which is really yesterday by the time I am posting this – is the yartzeit of the holy Rav Meir Kahane, HY”D.
The Last Man On The Moon
The United States took many more safety precautions with their space program than their competitor, the Soviet Union, did with theirs, resulting in only one fatal accident during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
There were an additional five successful lunar landings after Apollo 11.
There was also one failed mission when Apollo 13 exploded on the way to the moon. Fortunately, all crew members survived, as the crew resourcefully overcame several hardships and successfully returned to Earth.
The last manned mission to the moon was Apollo 17.
It was launched December 7, 1972, landed on December 11 and departed for the return to Earth on December 15.
In the early morning of December 15, 1972, thirty-nine years ago today, Eugene (Gene) Cernan took a final walk on the moon, then left the lunar surface and returned to the landing module.
Subsequent Apollo missions were cancelled, and neither the U.S. nor any other country has ever attempted another manned mission to the moon or any other non-terrestrial body.
Despite technological advances, there have been retreats in some areas as well.
Over the last decade, we have seen the retirement of the Space Shuttle program (now we pay other countries to take our electronics into space) and the Concorde is no longer flying (now even the super-rich must fly at subsonic speeds).
That was a great read ICOT thank you for sharing it.
The Goq-
It’s my pleasure – thank you for the kind words.
Since I never know who might be interested in some of the topics that interest me (or if anyone is), the encouragement is appreciated.
The Massacre of Basel, Switzerland’s Jewish Community
(from the Jerusalem Post’s website)
On January 9, 1349, nearly the entire Jewish population of Basel was massacred by townspeople as Jews were blamed for the Black Plague.
At the end of the 14th century in Europe, scores were dying from the Black Plague and nobody knew why. That is, until a scapegoat was found. On January 9, 1349 (11 Shvat – icot), nearly the entire Jewish population of Basel was massacred by the townspeople. Ignorant to the causes of the plague, the people and local leaders of modern Switzerland, France and Germany accused Jews of poisoning wells. Most were burnt alive.
Despite a papal bull by Pope Clement VI in the second half of 1348 clearing the Jews of responsibility for the plague, the blaming, burning and banishing of the Jews did not stop.
In the beginning of 1349 in Basel, the Jewish community was rounded up. The children were separated from their parents and forcefully baptized. The 600 remaining adults were brought to a specially-built wooden structure on an island in the Rhine river and locked inside. The building was set ablaze, burning the Jews alive. Following the mass murder, the city of Basel resolved that no Jews were to be allowed in the city for 200 years, although this was revoked some decades later.
Black Plague.
ICOT another fascinating read, so the Jews contracted the plague less but were determined to be the cause convoluted logic for sure!
Horrifying story but necessary history to know thank you ICOT.
The Goq-
Thank you for the kind words and encouragement.
Jan 11th:
FIRST JEW TO HOLD PUBLIC OFFICE IN AMERICA TAKES HIS SEAT IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA PROVINCIAL CONGRESS (history channel)
Francis Salvador, the first Jew to hold an elected office in the Americas, takes his seat on the South Carolina Provincial Congress on this day in 1775.
Born in 1747, Salvador was descended from a line of prominent Sephardic Jews who made their home in London. His great grandfather, Joseph, was the East India Company’s first Jewish director. His grandfather was influential in bravely moving a group of 42 Jewish colonists to Savannah, Georgia, in 1733 despite the colony’s prohibition on Jewish settlers. The Salvadors then purchased land in South Carolina.
After the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 destroyed their Portuguese property and the East India Company collapsed, draining the family’s resources, the American property was all the Salvadors had left. In 1773, Francis Salvador left his wife and children in London to establish himself in South Carolina with the hope of rebuilding his family’s fortune. Within a year of his arrival, Salvador won a seat in the South Carolina General Assembly. In 1774, South Carolinians elected Salvador to the revolutionary Provincial Congress, which began to meet in January 1775, and in which Salvador spoke forcefully for the cause of independence.
On July 1, Salvador earned the nickname “Southern Paul Revere” when he rode 30 miles to warn of a Cherokee attack on backcountry settlements. Exactly one month later, while leading a militia group under the general command of Major General James Wilkinson, Salvador and his men were ambushed by a group of Cherokees and Loyalists near present-day Seneca, South Carolina. Salvador was shot and scalped by the Cherokees. Although he survived long enough to know that the militia had won the engagement, he never learned that the South Carolina delegation to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia had taken his advice and voted for independence from Britain.
Salvador was the first recorded Jewish soldier killed in the American War for Independence. He died at the age of 29, never having managed to bring his wife and children from London to the new country for which he fought so bravely.
MIEP GIES, WHO HID ANNE FRANK, DIES AT AGE 100 (history channel)
On August 4, 1944, after 25 months in hiding, the eight people in the Secret Annex were discovered by the Gestapo, the German secret state police, who had learned about the hiding place from an anonymous tipster who has never been definitively identified. Gies was working in the building at the time of the raid and avoided arrest because the officer was from her native Vienna and felt sympathy for her. She later went to police headquarters and tried, unsuccessfully, to pay a bribe to free the group.
In 1987, Gies published a memoir, “Anne Frank Remembered,” in which she wrote: “I am not a hero. I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did and more–much more–during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the heart of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then.”
MY BROTHER WAS BORN!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY
!!!*This may not have really happened, but it’s a neat bit of historical trivia, anyway
Today, 13 Tammuz, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe got out of jail.
July 4th:-
Independence day, 236th birthday of the United States of America {Tammuz 17th}.
36th Anniversary of the Entebbe raid {Tammuz 6th}.
36th Yohrzeit of Yonatan Netanyohu ZT’L {Tammuz 6th}.
Ad Astra
It could’ve happened.
Virgil Ivan (Gus) Grissom was born on April 3, 1926.
As a young man, he joined the U.S. Army Air Force during World War 2 but he was not involved in any combat.
During the Korean war he was a combat pilot who flew one hundred missions in a F-86 Sabrejet. He was not credited with any kills, but his outstanding flying skills were recognized by his superiors and he was assigned to be a flight instructor.
After the Korean war ended, he became a test pilot, where he was able to continue putting his flying skills to use.
After the termination of the Mercury project, Grissom joined the second American manned space program, named Gemini. This phase of the American space program tested new technologies and techniques that would subsequently be used in the Apollo program.
The Apollo program picked up where Gemini had left off, and Grissom joined it as one of its senior astronauts.
The Apollo program was a tremendous success. It sent humans to observe the far side of the moon for the first time ever in 1968, and the next year Apollo 11 successfully landed men on the moon and returned them safely to Earth. In all, six missions landed on the moon, and all returned safely.
Gus Grissom may well have been the first man to set foot on the moon if not for the Apollo 1 tragedy.
Chief Astronaut Donald Kent (Deke) Slayton, who was in charge of Apollo crew assignment, revealed that Grissom would have been his first choice.
A simple plaque at Cape Canaveral memorializes the ill-fated astronauts of Apollo 1:
(a rough road leads to the stars)
August 2nd 1970
50 years ago today was the first ever hijacking of a 747.
The plane took off a little after 1:00 a.m. from JFK and less than 2 hours later the 27 year old hijacker pulled out a gun and demanded to be flown to Cuba. When Fidel Castro heard that a jumbo airliner was coming to Cuba for the first time he jumped out of bed and rushed to the airport to greet it.
When the plane landed the pilot and hijacker were the only ones to disembark (many of the passengers slept through the entire ordeal). The tallest ladder truck in the airport was three feet too short for the plane and they had to climb down. The airport didn’t have the proper equipment to open the luggage compartment so the hijacker couldn’t retrieve luggage. The airport also didn’t have the proper equipment to start a 747 engine so the pilot had to leave one of them on the entire time.
Mr. Castro asked the pilot to give him a tour of the outside of the plane and the pilot also answered all his questions about the capabilities of the plane, including whether the runway there was long enough for the plane to take off- it was. (He declined the offer of a tour inside the cabin.) He then allowed the plane to leave and had the hijacker arrested.
After his release three years later he committed another crime shortly afterwards (I couldn’t find anywhere what he did) and went back to jail. When he got released for the second time he had enough in Cuba and returned to the US where he got sentenced to life in jail. (I tried researching his current whereabouts but couldn’t find anything definitive. The last news article I found said that he was still in jail but that was over 10 years ago. I checked the BOP inmate locator and couldn’t find anyone with his name currently incarcerated but there was someone with the same name released in 2011.)
The hijacked aircraft, registration number N736PA, was the first 747 in commercial service only a few months earlier, on January 22, 1970. On March 27,1977 this very same airliner was crashed into by another 747 on the runway on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Between the two planes there were 583 fatalities (and 61 injuries), it remains the deadliest aviation accident to this day.
Of the 1,588 747s built 61 were written off as hull loses. Of the 25 in the original Pan Am order that launched the entire program 4 (that I know of) suffered that fate, although none to design flaws or mechanical failure.
Aside from the one listed above, Pan Am Flight 103 was destroyed in a bombing in 1988, Pan Am Flight 73 was destroyed after crashing into something during takeoff in 1983 and Pan Am Flight 93 which was hijacked as part of the Dawson Field hijackings and blown up in Cairo after all the passengers left.
I found it interesting that the two hijackers were originally on an El Al flight intending to hijack it with two other terrorists but the pilot kicked them off and they got on the Pan Am flight and hijacked that one instead. The El Al flight was almost hijacked but the pilot put the plane into a steep dive, forcing the hijackers to the ceiling and giving the sky marshal the opportunity to neutralize the situation.
Why isn’t this post showing up on the front page?
Thanks for pushing it through. I’m not sure what was going on but this thread wasn’t being moved to the front page even though I posted this morning.
Thanks for taking care of it.
There is a book by Simon Wiesenthal called Every Day Remembrance Day, A Chronicle of Jewish Martyrdom 1987. This enumerates the Jewish martyrdom through the ages from Jan 1 – Dec 31.
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