On this day in history

[darlowolf64]

10th February

1906 – HMS Dreadnought, the first of a revolutionary new breed of battleships, is christened.

HMS Dreadnought was a Royal Navy battleship, the design of which revolutionised naval power. The ship's entry into service in 1906 represented such an advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the dreadnoughts, as well as the class of ships named after her. Likewise, the generation of ships she made obsolete became known as pre-dreadnoughts. Admiral Sir John "Jacky" Fisher, First Sea Lord of the Board of Admiralty, is credited as the father of Dreadnought. Shortly after he assumed office in 1904, he ordered design studies for a battleship armed solely with 12in guns and a speed of 21 knots. He convened a Committee on Designs to evaluate the alternative designs and to assist in the detailed design work.

Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary armament of smaller guns. She was also the first capital ship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion. Her launch helped spark a naval arms race as navies around the world, particularly the Imperial German Navy, rushed to match it in the build-up to the First World War.

Although designed to engage enemy battleships, her only significant action was the ramming and sinking of German submarine SM U-29; thus she became the only battleship confirmed to have sunk a submarine. Dreadnought did not participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916 as she was being refitted. Nor did Dreadnought participate in any of the other First World War naval battles. In May 1916 she was relegated to coastal defence duties in the English Channel, before rejoining the Grand Fleet in 1918. The ship was reduced to reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap two years later.

Also on 10th February...

1306 – In front of the high altar of Greyfriars Church in Dumfries, Robert the Bruce murders John Comyn, sparking the revolution in the Wars of Scottish Independence.
1355 – The St Scholastica Day riot breaks out in Oxford, England, leaving 63 scholars and perhaps 30 locals dead in two days.

1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, on his second voyage to India.
1567 – Lord Darnley, second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, is found strangled following an explosion at the Kirk o' Field house in Edinburgh, Scotland, a suspected assassination.
1840 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom marries Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
1920 – Józef Haller de Hallenburg performs the symbolic wedding of Poland to the sea, celebrating restitution of Polish access to open sea.
1954 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns against United States intervention in Vietnam.
1962 – Cold War: Captured American U2 spy-plane pilot Gary Powers is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel.
1989 – Ron Brown is elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee, becoming the first African American to lead a major American political party.

 

[darlowolf64]

11th February

1990 – Buster Douglas, a 42:1 underdog, knocks out Mike Tyson in ten rounds at Tokyo to win boxing's world Heavyweight title.

Mike Tyson vs. Buster Douglas, billed as Tyson is Back!, was a professional boxing match that occurred at the Tokyo Dome on February 11, 1990. The then-undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion Tyson lost by knockout to the 42:1 underdog Douglas. The fight is widely regarded as the biggest upset in boxing history.

Going into the fight, Mike Tyson was the undefeated and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and was very popular at the time. He held the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles. Despite several controversies that marred Tyson's profile at the time, such as his allegedly abusive relationship with Robin Givens, contractual battles between longtime manager Bill Cayton and promoter Don King, and Tyson's departure from longtime trainer Kevin Rooney, Tyson was still dominant in the ring. He scored a 93-second knockout against Carl "The Truth" Williams in his previous fight. Most considered this fight to be a warm-up bout for Tyson before meeting up with then-undefeated number-one heavyweight contender Evander Holyfield. Tyson was viewed as such a dominant champion that he was often considered the number-one fighter in the world pound-for-pound, a rarity for heavyweights.

Buster Douglas was ranked as the #7 heavyweight contender by Ring Magazine and had met with mixed success in his professional career up to that point. His previous title fight was against Tony Tucker in 1987, in which he was TKO'd in the 10th round. However, six consecutive wins since the Tucker fight -- including victories over former world champion Trevor Berbick and future world champion Oliver McCall -- gave him the opportunity to fight Tyson.

From the beginning of the fight, it was apparent that Douglas was not afraid. Douglas displayed a lot of spring in his body movement and was not cautious in letting his punches fly whenever he saw the opportunity to attack Tyson. He used his quick and accurate jab to prevent Tyson from getting inside, where Tyson was most dangerous. When Tyson tried to get inside, Douglas tied him up, moved away, or would immediately hit Tyson with multiple punches as Tyson came within Douglas' range.

In the tenth round, Tyson pushed forward, but he was still seriously hurting from the accumulation of punishment he had absorbed throughout the match. As Tyson advanced, Douglas measured him with a few jabs before landing an uppercut that snapped Tyson's head upward, stopping Tyson in his tracks. As Tyson reeled back, Douglas immediately followed with four punches to the head, knocking Tyson down for the first time in his career. In a famous scene, Tyson fumbled for his mouthpiece on the canvas before sticking one end in his mouth with the other end hanging out. The champion attempted to make it back to his feet, but referee Octavio Meyran counted him out. Buster Douglas thus became the new undisputed heavyweight champion, engineering one of the biggest upsets in boxing history. The official scorecards through nine rounds were 87–86 for Tyson, 86–86, and 88–83 for Douglas.

Also on 11th February...

660 BC – Traditional date for the foundation of Japan by Emperor Jimmu.
1144 - Robert of Chester completes his translation from Arabic to Latin of the Liber de compositione alchemiae, marking the birth of Western alchemy.
1534 – At the Convocation of Canterbury, the Catholic bishops comprising the Upper House of the Province of Canterbury agree to style Henry VIII supreme head of the English church and clergy "so far as the law of Christ allows".
1586 – Sir Francis Drake with an English force captures and occupies the Spanish colonial port of Cartagena de Indias for two months, obtaining a ransom and booty.
1794 – First session of United States Senate opens to the public.
1808 – Jesse Fell burns anthracite on an open grate as an experiment in heating homes with coal.
1858 – Bernadette Soubirous's first vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurs in Lourdes, France.
1937 – The Flint sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Auto Workers trade union.
1938 – BBC Television produces the world's first ever science fiction television programme, an adaptation of a section of the Karel Čapek play R.U.R., that coined the term "robot".
1953 – Cold War: U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower denies all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1963 — The Beatles recorded their first album Please Please Me
1979 – The Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.[41]
1990 – Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison outside Cape Town, South Africa after 27 years as a political prisoner

 

[darlowolf64]

12th February

2002 – The trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, begins at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, Netherlands.

Slobodan Milošević was indicted in May 1999, during the Kosovo War, by the UN's International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity in Kosovo. Charges of violating the laws or customs of war, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in Croatia and Bosnia and genocide in Bosnia were added a year and a half later.

The charges on which Milošević was indicted were: genocide; complicity in genocide; deportation; murder; persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds; inhumane acts/forcible transfer; extermination; imprisonment; torture; willful killing; unlawful confinement; willfully causing great suffering; unlawful deportation or transfer; extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly; cruel treatment; plunder of public or private property; attacks on civilians; destruction or willful damage done to historic monuments and institutions dedicated to education or religion; unlawful attacks on civilian objects.

The war crimes trial of Slobodan Milošević, the former President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia lasted for just over four years from 2002 until his death in 2006. Milošević faced 66 counts of crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes committed during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

In 2016, the ICTY issued its judgement in the separate case against former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić, which concluded that insufficient evidence had been presented in that case to find that Milosevic "agreed with the common plan" to create territories ethnically cleansed of non-Serbs during the Bosnian War. The judgement noted that "Milošević's repeated criticism and disapproval of the policies and decisions made by [Karadžić] and the Bosnian Serb leadership" and, in a footnote, the "apparent discord between [Karadžić] and Milošević" during which Milošević "openly criticised Bosnian Serb leaders of committing 'crimes against humanity' and 'ethnic cleansing' and the war for their own purposes." Nevertheless, the court also noted that Milošević also "shared and endorsed the political objective of the Accused [Karadžić]" and "provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions, and arms to the Bosnian Serbs during the conflict".


Also on 12th February...

1502 – Isabella I issues an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
1502 – Vasco da Gama sets sail with 15 ships and 800 men from Lisbon, Portugal on his second voyage to India.
1689 – The Convention Parliament declares that the flight to France in 1688 by James II, the last Roman Catholic British monarch, constitutes an abdication.
1935 – USS Macon, one of the two largest helium-filled airships ever created, crashes into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California and sinks.
1946 – African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard is severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer to the point where he loses his vision in both eyes. The incident later galvanizes the civil rights movement and partially inspires Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil.
1965 – Malcolm X visits Smethwick near Birmingham following the racially-charged 1964 United Kingdom general election.
1993 – Two-year-old James Bulger is abducted from New Strand Shopping Centre by two ten-year-old boys, who later torture and murder him.
1994 – Four thieves break into the National Gallery of Norway and steal Edvard Munch's iconic painting The Scream.
1999 – United States President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.

 

[darlowolf64]

13th February

1935 – A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh.

Bruno Richard Hauptmann was a German-born carpenter who was convicted of the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr., the 20-month-old son of aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh. The Lindbergh kidnapping became known as "The Crime of the Century". Both Hauptmann and his wife, Anna Hauptmann, proclaimed his innocence to his death, when he was executed in 1936 by electric chair at the Trenton State Prison. Anna later sued the State of New Jersey, various former police officers, the Hearst newspapers that had published pre-trial articles insisting on Hauptmann's guilt, and former prosecutor David T. Wilentz.

On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr, the 20-month-old son of colonel Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amwell, New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road.

In September 1934, a German immigrant carpenter named Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested for the crime. After a trial that lasted from January 2 to February 13, 1935, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Despite his conviction, he continued to profess his innocence, but all appeals failed and he was executed in the electric chair at the New Jersey State Prison on April 3, 1936. Hauptmann's guilt or lack thereof continues to be debated in the modern day. Newspaper writer H. L. Mencken called the kidnapping and trial "the biggest story since the Resurrection". Legal scholars have referred to the trial as one of the "trials of the century". The crime spurred the U.S. Congress to pass the Federal Kidnapping Act (commonly referred to as the "Little Lindbergh Law") which made transporting a kidnapping victim across state lines a federal crime.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 13th February...

1462 – The Treaty of Westminster is finalised between Edward IV of England and the Scottish Lord of the Isles.
1542 – Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII of England, is executed for adultery.
1633 – Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition.
1642 – The Clergy Act becomes law, excluding bishops of the Church of England from serving in the House of Lords.
1689 – William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
1692 – Massacre of Glencoe: Almost 80 Macdonalds at Glen Coe, Scotland are killed early in the morning for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.
1861 – Italian unification: The Siege of Gaeta ends with the capitulation of the defending fortress, effectively bringing an end of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
1880 – Thomas Edison observes Thermionic emission.
1914 – Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.
1920 – The Negro National League is formed.
1931 – The British Raj completes its transfer from Calcutta to New Delhi.
1945 – World War II: Royal Air Force bombers are dispatched to Dresden, Germany to attack the city with a massive aerial bombardment.
1954 – Frank Selvy becomes the only NCAA Division I basketball player ever to score 100 points in a single game.
1955 – Israel obtains four of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
1960 – With the success of a nuclear test codenamed "Gerboise Bleue", France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons.
1984 – Konstantin Chernenko succeeds the late Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1990 – German reunification: An agreement is reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
2004 – The Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announces the discovery of the universe's largest known diamond, white dwarf star BPM 37093. Astronomers named this star "Lucy" after The Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
2008 – Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd makes a historic apology to the Indigenous Australians and the Stolen Generations.
2017 – Kim Jong-nam, brother of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, is assassinated at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

 

[darlowolf64]

14th February

1929 – Saint Valentine's Day Massacre: Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone's gang, are murdered in Chicago.

The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang that occurred on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago garage on the morning of February 14, 1929. They were lined up against a wall and shot by four unknown assailants, two of whom were disguised as police officers.

The murders resulted from the competition for control of organized crime in the city during Prohibition between the largely Irish North Siders, headed by George "Bugs" Moran, and their largely Italian Chicago Outfit rivals led by Al Capone. The perpetrators have never been conclusively identified, but former members of the Egan's Rats gang working for Capone are suspected of involvement; others have said that members of the Chicago Police Department who allegedly wanted revenge for the killing of a police officer's son played a part.

At 10:30 in the morning on Saint Valentine's Day, Thursday, February 14, 1929, seven men were murdered at the garage at 2122 North Clark Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago's North Side. They were shot by four men using weapons that included two Thompson submachine guns. Two of the shooters were wearing police uniforms, while the others wore suits, ties, overcoats, and hats. Witnesses saw the men in police uniforms leading the other men at gunpoint out of the garage after the shooting.

The victims included five members of George "Bugs" Moran's North Side Gang. Moran's second in command and brother-in-law Albert Kachellek (alias James Clark) was killed along with Adam Heyer, the gang's bookkeeper and business manager; Albert Weinshank, who managed several cleaning and dyeing operations for Moran; and gang enforcers Frank Gusenberg and Peter Gusenberg. Two associates were also shot: Reinhardt H. Schwimmer, a former optician turned gambler and gang associate; and John May, an occasional mechanic for the Moran gang.

Also on 14th February...

1556 – Having been declared a heretic and laicized by Pope Paul IV on 4 December 1555, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer is publicly defrocked at Christ Church Cathedral.
1778 – The United States flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
1779 – James Cook is killed by Native Hawaiians near Kealakekua on the Island of Hawaii.
1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Battle of Cape St. Vincent: John Jervis, (later 1st Earl of St Vincent) and Horatio Nelson (later 1st Viscount Nelson) lead the British Royal Navy to victory over a Spanish fleet in action near Gibraltar.
1849 – In New York City, James Knox Polk becomes the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken.
1852 – Great Ormond St Hospital for Sick Children, the first hospital in England to provide in-patient beds specifically for children, is founded in London.
1876 – Alexander Graham Bell applies for a patent for the telephone, as does Elisha Gray.
1939 – World War II: German battleship Bismarck is launched.

1946 – The Bank of England is nationalized.
1989 – Union Carbide agrees to pay $470 million to the Indian government for damages it caused in the 1984 Bhopal disaster.
1989 – Iranian leader Ruhollah Khomeini issues a fatwa encouraging Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie, author of The Satanic Verses.

 

[darlowolf64]

15th February

1898 – The battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor in Cuba, killing about 274 of the ship's roughly 354 crew. The disaster pushes the United States to declare war on Spain.

In January 1898, Maine was sent from Key West, Florida to Havana, Cuba to protect American interests during the Cuban War of Independence. She arrived at 11:00 local time on January 25. At 21:40 on 15 February, an explosion on the Maine occurred in the Havana harbor Later investigations revealed that more than 5.1 tons of powder charges for the vessel's six- and ten-inch guns had detonated, obliterating the forward third of the ship. The remaining wreckage rapidly settled to the bottom of the harbor.

Most of Maine's crew were sleeping or resting in the enlisted quarters, in the forward part of the ship, when the explosion occurred. The ship's crew consisted of 355: 26 officers, 290 enlisted sailors and 39 Marines. Of these, there were 261 fatalities:

• Two officers and 251 enlisted sailors or Marines were killed by the explosion or drowned
• Seven others were rescued but soon died of their injuries
• One officer later died of "cerebral affection" (shock)

Of the 94 survivors, 16 were uninjured. Captain Sigsbee and most of the officers survived because their quarters were in the aft portion of the ship. The City of Washington, an American merchant steamship, aided in rescuing the crew.

Maine's destruction did not result in an immediate declaration of war with Spain, but the event created an atmosphere that endangered a peaceful solution. The Spanish investigation found that the explosion had been caused by spontaneous combustion of the coal bunkers, but the Sampson Board ruled that the explosion had been caused by an external explosion from a torpedo.

The episode focused national attention on the crisis in Cuba. The McKinley administration did not cite the explosion as a casus belli, but others were already inclined to wage war with Spain over perceived atrocities and loss of control in Cuba. Advocates of war used the rallying cry, "Remember the Maine! To hell with Spain!" The Spanish–American War began on April 21, 1898, two months after the sinking.

Also on 15th February...

1493 – While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.
1764 – The city of St. Louis is established in Spanish Louisiana, now in Missouri, USA).
1923 – Greece becomes the last European country to adopt the Gregorian calendar.
1933 – In Miami, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to assassinate US President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but instead shoots Chicago mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds on March 6.
1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
1965 – A new red-and-white maple leaf design is adopted as the flag of Canada, replacing the old Canadian Red Ensign banner.

1971 – The decimalisation of the currencies of the United Kingdom and Ireland is completed on Decimal Day.
1972 – Sound recordings are granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
1992 – Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is sentenced in Milwaukee to 15 terms of life in prison.
2003 – Protests against the Iraq war take place in over 600 cities worldwide. It is estimated that between eight million and 30 million people participate, making this the largest peace demonstration in history.

 

[leedswolf]

16 February

Today is the 75th anniversary of the formation of the European Movement. The European Movement was founded by Winston Churchill on 16th February 1949 to promote European unity. For over 75 years, EMUK have worked to build a closer relationship with our European neighbours.

 

[Kenny]

16 February
founded by Winston Churchill

The creator of all things woke...

 

[darlowolf64]

16th February

1923 – Howard Carter unseals the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

Howard Carter was a British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered the intact tomb of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun in November 1922, the best-preserved pharaonic tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

In 1907, he began work for Lord Carnarvon, who employed him to supervise the excavation of nobles' tombs in Deir el-Bahri, near Thebes. Gaston Maspero, head of the Egyptian Antiquities Service, had recommended Carter to Carnarvon as he knew he would apply modern archaeological methods and systems of recording.

In 1922, a team led by British Egyptologist Howard Carter in the Valley of the Kings excavated Tutankhamun's tomb, in an effort that was funded by British aristocrat George Herbert. The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb received worldwide press coverage; with over 5,000 artifacts, it gave rise to renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun's mask, now preserved at the Egyptian Museum, remains a popular symbol. Some of his treasure has traveled worldwide with unprecedented response; the Egyptian government allowed tours beginning in 1961. The deaths of some individuals who were involved in the unearthing of Tutankhamun's mummy have been popularly attributed to the "curse of the pharaohs" due to the similarity of their circumstances.

Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb that was unusually small considering his status. His death may have occurred unexpectedly, before the completion of a grander royal tomb, causing his mummy to be buried in a tomb intended for someone else. This would preserve the observance of the customary 70 days between death and burial. His tomb was robbed at least twice in antiquity, but based on the items taken (including perishable oils and perfumes) and the evidence of restoration of the tomb after the intrusions, these robberies likely took place within several months at most of the initial burial. The location of the tomb was lost because it had come to be buried by debris from subsequent tombs, and workers' houses were built over the tomb entrance.

Also on 16th February...

1646 – Battle of Torrington, Devon: The last major battle of the First English Civil War.
1742 – Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, becomes British Prime Minister. He is considered to have been Britain's second prime minister, after Robert Walpole
1866 – Spencer Compton Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington becomes British Secretary of State for War.
1899 – Iceland's first football club, Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, is founded.
1930 – The Romanian Football Federation joins FIFA.
1940 – World War II: Altmark incident: The German tanker Altmark is boarded by sailors from the British destroyer HMS Cossack. A total of 299 British prisoners are freed.
1945 – The Alaska Equal Rights Act of 1945, the first anti-discrimination law in the United States, was signed into law.
1959 – Fidel Castro becomes Premier of Cuba after dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown on January 1.
1960 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.
1962 – The Great Sheffield Gale impacts the United Kingdom, killing nine people; the city of Sheffield is devastated, with 150,000 homes damaged.
1978 – The first computer bulletin board system is created (CBBS in Chicago).
1983 – The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia kill 75.
1985 – Hezbollah is founded.
2006 – The last Mobile army surgical hospital (MASH) is decommissioned by the United States Army.

 

[darlowolf64]

17th February

1864 – American Civil War: The H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, the USS Housatonic.

Above - Sketch of the H. L. Hunley, inventor Horace Lawrence Hunley and the USS Housatonic...

Hunley made her only attack against an enemy target on the night of 17 February 1864. The target was United States Navy ship, USS Housatonic, a 1,260 t wooden-hulled steam-powered screw sloop-of-war with 12 large cannons, which was stationed at the entrance to Charleston, about 5 miles offshore. Hunley happened to be on patrol around that area at the time. Helmed by Lieutenant George E. Dixon with a crew of seven and desperate to break the naval blockade of the city, H. L. Hunley successfully attacked Housatonic, ramming Hunley's only spar torpedo against the enemy's hull. The torpedo was detonated, sending Housatonic to the bottom in three minutes, along with five of her crewmen.Hunley and her crew went missing after the attack. They would not be found for over 100 years.

It was originally thought that H.L. Hunley was sunk as the result of her own torpedo exploding, but some claim that she survived as long as an hour after destroying Housatonic. Support for the argument of H.L. Hunley's brief survival is a report by the commander of Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island that prearranged signals from the sub were observed, and answered; he did not say what the signal was. Further support comes from the testimony of a lookout on the sunken Housatonic, who reported seeing a "blue light" from his perch in the sunken ship's rigging. There was also a post-war claim that two "blue lights" were the prearranged signal between the sub and Fort Moultrie. "Blue light" at the time of the Civil War was a pyrotechnic signal in long use by the US Navy.

This was the last time H.L. Hunley was heard from, until her recovery from the waters off Charleston, South Carolina. While returning to her naval station H.L. Hunley sank for unknown reasons. However, a team of historians managed to examine the submarine's remains, and theorized that a crewman on Housatonic was able to fire a rifle round into one of H.L. Hunley's viewing ports.

New evidence announced by archaeologists in 2013 indicates that H.L. Hunley was less than 20 feet away from the point of detonation, much closer than previously realized, and thus the explosion probably damaged the submarine as well as its target, although it was impossible to tell at the time due to concretion covering the hull. Later studies showed that the crew was probably instantly killed through blast injury caused by the close proximity of the torpedo, though this remains disputed.

Also on 17th February...

1753 – In Sweden February 17 is followed by March 1 as the country moves from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
1801 – United States presidential election: A tie in the Electoral College between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved when Jefferson is elected President of the United States and Burr Vice President by the United States House of Representatives.
1838 – Weenen massacre: Hundreds of Voortrekkers along the Blaukraans River, Natal are killed by Zulus.
1854 – The United Kingdom recognizes the independence of the Orange Free State.
1863 – A group of citizens of Geneva found an International Committee for Relief to the Wounded, which later became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
1949 – Chaim Weizmann begins his term as the first President of Israel.
1965 – Project Ranger: The Ranger 8 probe launches on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the crewed Apollo missions. Mare Tranquillitatis or the "Sea of Tranquility" would become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.
1972 – Cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T.
1974 – Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzes the White House in a stolen helicopter.
1980 – First winter ascent of Mount Everest by Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy.

 

[darlowolf64]

18th February

1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.
John Tunstall Jesse Evans (bottom)
John Henry Tunstall was an English-born rancher and merchant in Lincoln County, New Mexico, United States. He competed with the Irish Catholic merchants, lawmen, and politicians who ran the town of Lincoln and the county. Tunstall, a member of the Republican Party, hoped to unseat the Irish and make a fortune as the county's new boss. He was the first man killed in the Lincoln County War, an economic and political conflict that resulted in armed warfare between rival gangs of cowboys and the ranchers, lawmen, and politicians who issued the orders.

When too many of the residents of Lincoln switched their business to Tunstall's store, Murphy-Dolan began a slide into bankruptcy, and Catron's bottom line was affected. Murphy and Dolan tried to put Tunstall out of business, first harassing him legally, then trying to goad him into a gunfight. They also hired gunmen, most of whom were members of the Jesse Evans Gang, also known as "The Boys."

Tunstall recruited gunfighters of his own, half a dozen local ranchers and cowboys who disliked Brady, Murphy, and Dolan. These men worked Tunstall's ranch and did his bidding during his conflict with Murphy/Dolan. One of Tunstall's employees was the 18-year-old William Bonney (née Henry McCarty, aka William Henry Antrim, aka El Chivato), who was later dubbed "Billy the Kid" when leading a gang of his own.

On February 18, 1878, Tunstall, Richard M. Brewer, John Middleton, Henry Newton Brown, Robert Widenmann, Fred Waite, and William Bonney were driving nine horses from Tunstall's ranch on the Rio Feliz to Lincoln. A posse deputized by Lincoln Sheriff Brady went to Tunstall's ranch on the Feliz to attach his cattle on a warrant that had been issued against his business partner, McSween. It was a testament to how completely entangled the business affairs of Tunstall and MacSween had become that the posse came to attach Tunstall's cattle as collateral for MacSween's debts.

Finding Tunstall, his hands, and the horses gone, a sub-posse broke from the main posse and went in pursuit. However, these horses were not covered by any legal action.

Deputies Jesse Evans, Henry Hill, Morton (and probably Frank Baker) rode ahead after Tunstall. Evans, Morton, and Hill caught up with Tunstall and his men in an area covered with scrub timber a few miles from Lincoln. Tunstall, the nine horses, and his hired guns were spread out along the narrow trail. Bonney, who was riding drag, alerted the others. The deputies began firing without warning. Tunstall's hands galloped off through the brush to a hilltop overlooking the trail. Tunstall first stayed with his horses, then rode away but was pursued by the three deputies.

Only the three deputies survived the following confrontation. The historian Robert Utley writes that Tunstall may have surrendered or he may just as easily have drawn his sidearm and tried to defend himself from Deputies Morton, Hill, and Evans. Either way, the shooting began and Tunstall died instantly when hit by two rifle bullets, one in the chest and another that ripped through his brain. In the aftermath, Tunstall's supporters "claimed that he was murdered in cold blood". Supporters of the House, however, "insisted that he had been shot down while resisting arrest by a lawfully commissioned deputy sheriff of Lincoln County." John Tunstall died less than three weeks before his birthday. He was 24 years old.

In response, William Bonney, Richard M. Brewer, Chavez y Chavez, Doc Scurlock, Charlie Bowdre, George Coe, Frank Coe, Jim French, Frank McNab and other employees and friends of Tunstall's went to the Lincoln County Justice of the Peace, "Squire" John Wilson. He proved sympathetic to their cause and swore them all in as special constables to bring in Tunstall's killers. This posse was legal and led by Richard "Dick" Brewer, a respected local rancher who had worked as Tunstall's foreman. The newly minted lawmen dubbed themselves The Regulators and went first in search of Deputies Evans, Morton, Hill, and Baker and all the others implicated in Tunstall's death. Thus, two groups of lawmen rode throughout Lincoln County at war with each other.

 

[darlowolf64]

Also on 18th February...

1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London.
1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad.
1814 – Napoleonic Wars: The Battle of Montereau.
1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1885 – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is published in the United States.
1911 – The first official flight with airmail takes place from Allahabad, United Provinces, British India (now India), when Henri Pequet, a 23-year-old pilot, delivers 6,500 letters to Naini, about 6 miles away.
1915 – U-boat Campaign: The Imperial German Navy institutes unrestricted submarine warfare in the waters around Great Britain and Ireland.
1943 – World War II: The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
1946 – Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay harbour, from where the action spreads throughout the Provinces of British India, involving 78 ships, twenty shore establishments and 20,000 sailors
1970 – The Chicago Seven are found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
1977 – The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.

 

[Langers]

1478 – George, Duke of Clarence, convicted of treason against his older brother Edward IV of England, is executed in private at the Tower of London.

Drowned in a vat of wine, I think?

 

[darlowolf64]

Drowned in a vat of wine, I think?

So the story goes… “a butt of Malmsey wine”

 

[darlowolf64]

19th February

1942 – World War II: Nearly 250 Japanese warplanes attack the northern Australian city of Darwin, killing 243 people.

The Bombing of Darwin, also known as the Battle of Darwin, on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. On that day, 242 Japanese aircraft, in two separate raids, attacked the town, ships in Darwin Harbour and the town's two airfields in an attempt to prevent the Allies from using them as bases to contest the invasion of Timor and Java during World War II.

Darwin was lightly defended relative to the size of the attack, and the Japanese inflicted heavy losses upon Allied forces at little cost to themselves. The urban areas of Darwin also suffered some damage from the raids and there were a number of civilian casualties. More than half of Darwin's civilian population left the area permanently, before or immediately after the attack.

The two Japanese air raids were the first, and largest, of more than 100 air raids against Australia during 1942–1943. The event happened just four days after the Fall of Singapore, when a combined Commonwealth force surrendered to the Japanese, the largest surrender in British history.

The four Japanese aircraft carriers launched 188 aircraft on the morning of 19 February. The main objective of their crews was attacking ships and port facilities in Darwin Harbour. Their aircraft comprised 81 Nakajima B5N ("Kate") light bombers, 71 Aichi D3A ("Val") dive bombers, and an escort of 36 Mitsubishi A6M ("Zero") fighters. While the B5N was a purpose-built torpedo bomber, it could instead carry up to 1,800 lb of bombs and there is no evidence of torpedoes being used on this occasion; the D3A could carry up to 1,133 lb of bombs. All of these aircraft were launched by 8.45 am. This wave was led by Commander Mitsuo Fuchida, who had also commanded the first wave of attackers during the raid on Pearl Harbor.

The second wave, made up of 54 land-based medium bombers (27 Mitsubishi G3M and 27 Mitsubishi G4M) arrived over Darwin just before midday. The town's air raid sirens were sounded at 11:58 am when the bombers were sighted. The Japanese force separated into two groups flying at 18,000 feet. One of these formations attacked RAAF Base Darwin from the south-west while the other approached from the north-east. The two formations arrived over the base at the same time, and dropped their bombs simultaneously. The Japanese bombers then turned, and made a second attack on the base. Due to defective fuses, the Australian heavy anti-aircraft flak gunners were unable to shoot down or damage any of the high-flying Japanese aircraft. The bombers left the Darwin area at about 12:20 pm.

This raid inflicted extensive damage on the RAAF base, though casualties were light. Of the RAAF aircraft at the base, six Hudson light bombers were destroyed and another Hudson and a Wirraway were badly damaged. Two American P-40s and a B-24 Liberator bomber were also destroyed. Six RAAF personnel were killed. Lewis and Ingman list 30 aircraft destroyed.

Also on 19th February...

1807 – Former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr is arrested for treason in Wakefield, Alabama, and confined to Fort Stoddert.
1819 – British explorer William Smith discovers the South Shetland Islands and claims them in the name of King George III.
1836 – King William IV signs Letters Patent establishing the Province of South Australia.
1878 – Thomas Edison patents the phonograph.
1913 – Pedro Lascuráin becomes President of Mexico for 45 minutes; this is the shortest term to date of any person as president of any country.
1942 – World War II: United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs executive order 9066, allowing the United States military to relocate Japanese Americans to internment camps.
1954 – Transfer of Crimea: The Soviet Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the Russian SFSR to the Ukrainian SSR.
1976 – Executive Order 9066, which led to the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, is rescinded by President Gerald Ford's Proclamation 4417.
1985 – William J. Schroeder becomes the first recipient of an artificial heart to leave the hospital.

 

[darlowolf64]

20th February

1824 – William Buckland formally announces the name Megalosaurus, the first scientifically validly named non-avian dinosaur species.

Megalosaurus, meaning "great lizard", is an extinct genus of large carnivorous theropod dinosaurs of the Middle Jurassic Epoch, 166 million years ago, of southern England. Although fossils from other areas have been assigned to the genus, the only certain remains of Megalosaurus come from Oxfordshire and date to the late Middle Jurassic.

Buckland wrote the first full account of a fossil dinosaur, which he named Megalosaurus. His work proved that Kirkdale Cave in North Yorkshire had been a prehistoric hyena den, for which he was awarded the Copley Medal. It was praised as an example of how scientific analysis could reconstruct events in the distant past. He pioneered the use of fossilised faeces in reconstructing ecosystems, coining the term coprolites.

Buckland followed the Gap Theory in interpreting the biblical account of Genesis as two widely separated episodes of creation.

He lived in Corpus Christi College and, in 1824, he became president of the Geological Society of London. Here he announced the discovery, at Stonesfield, of fossil bones of a giant reptile which he named Megalosaurus ('great lizard') and wrote the first full account of what would later be called a dinosaur.

Also on 20th February...

1547 – Edward VI of England is crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey.
1685 – René-Robert Cavelier establishes Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay thus forming the basis for France's claim to Texas.
1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by United States President George Washington.
1816 – Rossini's opera The Barber of Seville premieres at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1877 – Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake receives its premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.
1901 – The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time.
1913 – King O'Malley drives in the first survey peg to mark commencement of work on the construction of Canberra.
1933 – Adolf Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party's upcoming election campaign.
1935 – Caroline Mikkelsen becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.
1939 – Madison Square Garden Nazi rally: The largest ever pro-Nazi rally in United States history is convened in Madison Square Garden, New York City, with 20,000 members and sympathizers of the German American Bund present.
1942 – World War II: Lieutenant Edward O'Hare becomes America's first World War II flying ace.

1959 – The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.

1962 – Mercury program: While aboard Friendship 7, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth, making three orbits in four hours, 55 minutes.
1965 – Ranger 8 crashes into the Moon after a successful mission of photographing possible landing sites for the Apollo program astronauts.

 

[darlowolf64]

21st February

1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.
Friedrich Engels
The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party, is a political pamphlet written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848. The text is the first and most systematic attempt by Marx and Engels to codify for widespread consumption the core historical materialist idea that, as stated in the text's opening words, "the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles", in which social classes are defined by the relationship of people to the means of production. Published against the backdrop of the Revolutions of 1848 and their subsequent repression across Europe, the Manifesto remains one of the world's most influential political documents.

Marx and Engels combine materialism with the Hegelian dialectical method to analyze the development of European society through its modes of production, including primitive communism, antiquity, feudalism, and capitalism, noting the emergence of a new, dominant class at each stage. The text outlines the relationship between the means of production, relations of production, forces of production, and the mode of production, and posits that changes in society's economic base effect changes in its superstructure. Marx and Engels assert that capitalism is marked by the exploitation of the proletariat (working class of wage labourers) by the ruling bourgeoisie, which is "constantly revolutionising the instruments and relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society". They argue that capital's need for a flexible labour force dissolves the old relations, and that its global expansion in search of new markets creates "a world after its own image".


Also on 21st February...

1613 – Mikhail I is unanimously elected Tsar by a national assembly, beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.
1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
1878 – The first telephone directory is issued in New Haven, Connecticut.
1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated.
1896 – An Englishman raised in Australia, Bob Fitzsimmons, fought an Irishman, Peter Maher, in an American promoted event which technically took place in Mexico, winning the 1896 World Heavyweight Championship in boxing.
1925 – The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1945 – World War II: the Brazilian Expeditionary Force defeat the German forces in the Battle of Monte Castello on the Italian front.
1958 – The CND symbol, aka peace symbol, commissioned by the Direct Action Committee in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, is designed and completed by Gerald Holtom.
1974 – The last Israeli soldiers leave the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.
1975 – Watergate scandal: Former United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman are sentenced to prison.
1995 – Steve Fossett lands in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada becoming the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

 

[leedswolf]

22nd February

On this day in 1951

Wolves paid Brentford £10,000 for a 17 year old, a record fee paid for a teenager at the time.


His name was Peter Broadbent.

He went on to make 497 appearances for Wolves, scoring 145 goals.

 

[darlowolf64]

22nd February

1797 – The last hostile Invasion of Britain begins near Fishguard, Wales.

The Battle of Fishguard was a military invasion of Great Britain by Revolutionary France during the War of the First Coalition. The brief campaign, on 22–24 February 1797, is the most recent landing on British soil by a hostile foreign force, and thus is often referred to as the "last invasion of mainland Britain".

The French general Lazare Hoche had devised a three-pronged attack on Britain in support of the Society of United Irishmen. Two forces would land in Britain as a diversionary effort, while the main body would land in Ireland. Adverse weather and ill-discipline halted two of the forces but the third, aimed at landing in Wales and marching on Bristol, went ahead.

After brief clashes with hastily assembled British forces and the local civilian population, the invading force's Irish-American commander, Colonel William Tate, was forced into unconditional surrender on 24 February. In a related naval action, the British captured two of the expedition's vessels, a frigate and a corvette.

Also on February 22nd...

1371 – Robert II becomes King of Scotland, beginning the Stuart dynasty.
1770 – British customs officer Ebenezer Richardson fires blindly into a crowd during a protest in North End, Boston, fatally wounding 11-year-old Christopher Seider; the first American fatality of the American Revolution.
1819 – By the Adams–Onís Treaty, Spain sells Florida to the United States for five million U.S. dollars.
1847 – Mexican–American War: The Battle of Buena Vista: Five thousand American troops defeat 15,000 Mexican troops.
1856 – The United States Republican Party opens its first national convention in Pittsburgh.
1862 – American Civil War: Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.
1872 – The Prohibition Party holds its first national convention in Columbus, Ohio, nominating James Black as its presidential nominee.
1943 – World War II: Members of the White Rose resistance, Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst are executed in Nazi Germany.
1980 – Miracle on Ice: In Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4–3.
1983 – The notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on the same night at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
2011 – New Zealand's second deadliest earthquake strikes Christchurch, killing 185 people.