On this day in history...

[Heid the Ba]

Just Japan to go, don't tell me how it ends . . .

[Arneb]

Yeah, we got that 20/20. We'll come to it

9 May, V Day for the Soviet Union. 74 years ago, too.

[Мастер]

Yeah, we got that 20/20. We'll come to it

9 May, V Day for the Soviet Union. 74 years ago, too.

I just went to a Victory Day concert.

С Днём Победы!

Some years later, another significant event happened in the same country on that day.

[Arneb]

70 years ago today, the end of the Berlin Blockade. Thanks a lot for helping us out on that one. Nice foto collection here at Der Spiegel.

[Heid the Ba]

Those are great photos.

[Heid the Ba]

Happy Christi Himmelfahrt! And possibly Father's Day in 'schland?

[Arneb]

Absoluteley. Of course, I have to work tomorrow, so no booze for the gentleman. And I prepared a lecture today on how my micro hospital fared with a diabetes certificate. How' that for excitement?

Yesterday had an exciting anniversary:

29 May, 1919: Two British expedition confirm a central prediction of the General Theory of Relativity, the bending of light by large masses. They use the total Solar Exclipse of 19 May, 1919, to prove it via minutely divergent star positions around the darkened Sun. The publication of of the results is heavy with symbolism (British researchers going out of their way to test a theory developed by a citizen of THE enemy nation, etc.) and propels Albert Einstein to stardom.

[Heid the Ba]

That is exciting, the first part not Einstein.

[Arneb]

75 years ago today, Allied landing in Normandy. Thank you for that, veterans. I think we can all safely say, it wasn't for nought.

[Heid the Ba]

14th June was a busy old day:
1645 The Battle of Naseby, Right but Repulsive defeat Wrong but Wromantic.
1919 Alcock and Brown complete the first non-stop Trans-Atlantic flight in a converted Handley Page bomber.
1982 The Argentinian forces in Port Stanley surrender

[Heid the Ba]

18th June 1815: Britain, Netherlands and Prussia beat the Frenchies in Belgium. Three nil to IrU.

[Arneb]

And what did we get: The Vienna Congress, the heyday of the British Empire, and pre-March restoration.

[Heid the Ba]

Picky, picky, picky. Your man pulled Wellington's arse out of the fire, can we not be happy for one day?

If nothing else it got us ABBA winning Eurovision and subsequent performances where the women wore remarkably short white dresses. Yes, I was a teenager at the time . . .

[Arneb]

There is that. And it gave us the Germans manner of speaking, "Der geht ran wie Blücher" ("He's going at it like Blücher"), usually when a man's approach to the ladies is under discussion (although that's rarely used today). So, drinks all round.

[Arneb]

Bits and pieces today
1867 The lif and reign of Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, end before a firing squad
1933 Austria outlaws the NSDAP, as if that were any use.
1974 Nice one from German-German history: The Bundestag in Bonn closes deliberations on a law to found the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Office for the Environment). It names (West) Berlin as the office's seat, to snarling protest from the GDR. The Office remained in Berlin until after unification and was moved to Dessau, which was formerly in the GDR, in 2005.

[Heid the Ba]

1974 Nice one from German-German history: The Bundestag in Bonn closes deliberations on a law to found the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Office for the Environment). It names (West) Berlin as the office's seat, to snarling protest from the GDR. The Office remained in Berlin until after unification and was moved to Dessau, which was formerly in the GDR, in 2005.

All I knew of Dessau before this was that one of Frederick the Great's generals was the Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and known as "the Old Dessauer". Before his last battle he prayed with the words "O Lord God, let me not be disgraced in my old days. Or if Thou wilt not help me, do not help these scoundrels, but leave us to try it ourselves."

[Heid the Ba]

1867 The lif and reign of Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, end before a firing squad

This one is from the "Why did you think that was a good idea?" file. Maximilian was the younger brother of Franz Josef of Austro-Hungary and was put on the Mexican throne by the French Emperor Napoleon III. The Mexicans didn't take it well. The French Foreign Legion were involved and the incident where a Legion officer lobbed his artificial hand at the Mexicans was during this war.

[g-one]

100 yrs. ago, 21 June, Bloody Saturday
The most deadly day of the Winnipeg General Strike. It would be called off within another week to avoid more bloodshed.

https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longfor ... ells-alley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_ ... y_Saturday

[Arneb]

Missed it yesterday, but there was an interesting anniversary yesterday:

On Midsummer day, 1919, almost the entire German war fleet interned, in battle-unworthy condition at Scapa Flow Bay, off the Orkney islands, is deliberately sunk by a secret order of the commanding admiral. 9 German seaman are killed when British forces try, in vainm to force them back on their ships to stop the sinking. The admiral says that he could't imagineee the German delegation accepting the ignominious VErsailles treaty. So hostilities, he presumed, would soon re-open, and the British enemy would avail themselves of an entire fleet of fine. well-kept warships.

Today is even bigger: 76 years ago today, beginning of Unternehmen Barbarossa, the attack of Nazie Germany on the Soviet Union. This is probably the single most deadly military operation in history, with 20 million victims for the Soviet Union alone.

[Arneb]

100 years ago: Signing of the Versailles treaty. Not a good for Europe (or America, for that matter. Or anyone else).

[Richard A]

Bits and pieces today
1867 The lif and reign of Maximilian I, Emperor of Mexico, end before a firing squad
1933 Austria outlaws the NSDAP, as if that were any use.
1974 Nice one from German-German history: The Bundestag in Bonn closes deliberations on a law to found the Umweltbundesamt (Federal Office for the Environment). It names (West) Berlin as the office's seat, to snarling protest from the GDR. The Office remained in Berlin until after unification and was moved to Dessau, which was formerly in the GDR, in 2005.

Well, on the last one, I suppose the GDR had a point: West Berlin (as you've pointed out in other contexts) wasn't part of the Federal Republic. Although of course on precisely the same legal basis, East Berlin wasn't supposed to have been part of the GDR either, so calling it "Berlin, capital of the GDR" was decidedly taking the piss. Which makes it 1 all.

[Heid the Ba]

3rd July 1988 – United States Navy warship USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard.

[Richard A]

3 July 1187: Saladin kicks the Crusader army out of Jerusalem.

3 July 1863: Union army victory at the Battle of Gettysburg; after that, the outcome of the American Civil War is decided.

And no one yet has mentioned 3 July 1996!!

[Heid the Ba]

We're not convinced that one is the real one, it may have been stolen back decades ago.

[Lance]

3 July 1996?