August 4, 2010: Idle Thoughts began the Baker’s Dozen thread here on the Dope.
August 6, 1926 : American gold-medalist swimmer Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle became the first woman to swim the English Channel from Cap Griz-Nez, France to Dover, England. Her time of 14 hours and 39 minutes broke the previous record of 21 hours and 45 minutes, set by British Navy Captain Matthew Webb in 1875. Due to the extreme cold water she had covered her body in lard and petroleum jelly to insulate her from the cold waters of the Channel.
-“BB”-
August 28, 1880: Oldest known photograph of a tornado is taken.
August 30, 1956: A white mob prevents school integration in Mansfield, Texas.
Aug. 31, 1740: J.F. Oberlin, namesake of Oberlin College, was born.
Almost missed it!
Seventy-five years ago, on Sept 2, 1945, representatives of Japan came onboard the USS Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay and signed the surrender instruments that effectively ended the Second World War. General Douglas MacArthur, US Army, accepted the surrender on behalf of the Allied forces.
-“BB”-
September 3, 1878: The passenger ship Princess Alice collides with another ship on the Thames. 700+ die
Bad enough to have your pleasure liner rammed by another ship, but then to be plunged into a sewage-laden river… blecccchh.
John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry (also spelled Harper’s Ferry) was an effort by abolitionist John Brown, from October 16 to 18, 1859, to initiate a slave revolt in Southern states by taking over the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia.
On this day in 1781, Lord Cornwallis’s besieged British army at Yorktown surrendered to a combined American and French force led by Gen. George Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau. It was the last major land battle of the American Revolution.
October 27, 1962: Russian submarine officer Vasily Arkhipov refuses to agree to fire nuclear weapons at a US flotilla of ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Three officers had to agree to firing the weapons, and he was the only one that refused. His actions most certainly prevented large-scale nuclear war. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. has called this “the most dangerous moment in human history.”
It’s the birthday (some years apart) of two notable Americans named William.
November 10, 1975
The legend lives on, from the Chippewa on down,
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee.
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy.
Forty-five years ago tonight …when his lights went outta sight,
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald…
Incidentally, the dock from which she loaded her final cargo still stands just south of Superior, WI.
-“BB”-
11:00 A.M. 11/11/11918
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France. The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives. In addition, at least five million civilians died from disease, starvation, or exposure.
BB, National Geographic had an article a few years back with underwater photographs of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s wreck. I was amazed to see that several of the lightbulbs on her superstructure were still intact.
November 12, 1866
The still-revered Chinese political leader and philosopher Sun Yat-sen was born in Cuiheng.
Also on the 12th of November —
On this date in 1970, officials in Oregon tried to dispose of the 45-foot-long, eight-ton carcass of a dead, beached sperm whale with roughly one half-ton of explosives.
Let’s just say things didn’t go as planned, OK?
-“BB”-
November 14, 1840: Claude Monet is born.
November 14, 1948: HRH the Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, was born. 72 years is a long time to wait to become king.
November 17, 1796: Catherine the Great dies.
Today is the centennial of the birth of Stan Musial. He never played for the Yankees, so you probably never heard of him.