By 1453, Charles VII had reconquered all of France except for Calais, which
Loath as I am to link the O'Reilly factor this clip is just kinda sad. http://www.ijreview.com/2014/05/142510-memorial-day-reporter-asks-beachgoers-military-history-questions-answers-appalling/It is sad that America's education system has so obviously failed some young people, but judging these no-doubt-edited answers as "appalling" (see the URL), is heavily freighted with what Mr. O'Reilly presumably thinks is worth knowing. I wonder, for example, if that smug douche with the microphone knows after whom the chemical element Meitnerium is named*, or if he could reel off an explanation of Avogadro's Law if put on the spot on his day off? If he could not do these things, would he be more or less "appalling" than the people he and Mr. O'Reilly decided to hold up to ridicule?
1. Lieutenant James Doohan of the Winnipeg Rifles was shot in the hand and chest on D-Day. A silver cigarette case stopped the bullet to the chest, but the shot to his hand caused him to lose a finger.’
Doohan later became known to generations of TV viewers as the actor who played Scottie in Star Trek. While on camera, he always tried to hide his injured hand.
2. Celebrated war photographer Robert Capa was in the second wave of troops to land at Omaha Beach. His pictures of the event are known as The Magnificent Eleven – a title that reflects their number. Despite taking two reels of film, totalling 106 pictures, only 11 survived after 16-year-old darkroom assistant Dennis Banks dried them at too high a temperature.
3. Juan Pujol was a double agent working for MI5, who helped convince the Germans that D-Day wouldn’t be in June. Bizarrely, his first code name was BOVRIL – but that was soon changed to GARBO as he was such a good actor. GARBO fooled the Germans so completely, Hitler awarded him the Iron Cross. As he was living in Hendon at the time, Pujol asked if they could post it to him.
4. On the morning of D-Day, J.D. Salinger landed on Omaha Beach with six chapters of his unfinished novel Catcher in the Rye in his backpack. In the afternoon, Evelyn Waugh, recuperating in Devon after injuring his leg in paratrooper training, finished the final chapter of his novel Brideshead Revisited.
5. The giant wall map used by General Eisenhower and General Montgomery at their HQ Southwick House was made by toy maker Chad Valley.
6. Lord Lovat led the British 1st Special Service Brigade. An inspiring but eccentric figure, he landed on Sword Beach wearing hunting brogues and carrying a wading stick used for salmon fishing.
Working as an adviser on the film The Longest Day, Lovat woke up in a taxi surrounded by German troops and instinctively dived out of the car, but then realised they were just extras.
7. On the morning of D-Day, the House of Commons debated whether office cleaners should no longer be called ‘charladies.’
8. News of D-Day reached POW camp Colditz via an illegal radio hidden in an attic. To avoid detection, the POWs used shoes with no tread that left no mark in the attic’s dust.
On hearing the news, POW Cenek Chaloupka vowed that if the war wasn’t over by December he’d run round the courtyard naked. On Christmas Eve 1944, Chaloupka ran round it twice. It was -7 degrees Celsius.
9. Like many troops, Lieutenant Herbert Jalland of the Durham Light Infantry ran onto Gold Beach wearing pyjamas underneath his battledress, in order to prevent chafing from his backpack.
10. General Montgomery helped mastermind D-Day, the largest invasion the world had ever seen. His diary entry for the day read: ‘Invaded Normandy; left Portsmouth 10.30.
For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as an Automatic Rifleman with Company F, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, Regimental Combat Team 1, 1st Marine Division (Forward), I Marine Expeditionary Force (Forward), in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM on 21 November 2010. Lance Corporal Carpenter was a member of a platoon-sized coalition force, comprised of two reinforced Marine rifle squads partnered with an Afghan National Army squad. The platoon had established Patrol Base Dakota two days earlier in a small village in the Marjah District in order to disrupt enemy activity and provide security for the local Afghan population. Lance Corporal Carpenter and a fellow Marine were manning a rooftop security position on the perimeter of Patrol Base Dakota when the enemy initiated a daylight attack with hand grenades, one of which landed inside their sandbagged position. Without hesitation and with complete disregard for their own safety, Lance Corporal Carpenter moved toward the grenade in an attempt to shield his fellow Marine from the deadly blast. When the grenade detonated, his body absorbed the brunt of the blast, severely wounding him, but saving the live of his fellow Marine. By his undaunted courage, bold fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of almost certain death, Lance Corporal Carpenter reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service
1. Is there any advice you have for a young infantry lance corporal on how to make rank without actually throwing themselves on a piece of live ordnance?
2. What happened to your face? Do you blame Batman or Commissioner Gordon?
17. Have you ever caused a Victoria’s Secret store to collapse from the sheer mass of panties dropping all at once?
I hereby resolve to never feel like I'm having a bad day ever again, no matter how shit it gets.I'm simply happy that he is alive. I know that is a bit "motherhood", but...
American soldiers, members of Maryland's 117th Trench Mortar Battery, operating a trench mortar. This gun and crew kept up a continuous fire throughout the raid of March 4, 1918 in Badonviller, Muerthe et Modselle, France.Go Maryland. I had no idea they were still using the different states to signify where the regiment was from like from the ACW. Thought they intermixed everyone (as far as different states go). Perhaps Maryland conscripts? I'll have to look into it more.
A German dog hospital, treating wounded dispatch dogs coming from the front, ca. 1918.
The Salonica (Macedonian) front, Indian troops at a Gas mask drill. Allied forces joined with Serbs to battle armies of the Central Powers and force a stable front throughout most of the war.You know, in school the Eastern front wasn't mentioned much. Even if the Western front Allies sent troops over there. The French and British sent many conscripted soldiers from southeast Asia and India to fight in what is today Macedonia, along with other theaters of war.
Wars not make one great.- Yoda
(https://i.imgur.com/4gjAhm1.jpg)QuoteAmerican soldiers, members of Maryland's 117th Trench Mortar Battery, operating a trench mortar. This gun and crew kept up a continuous fire throughout the raid of March 4, 1918 in Badonviller, Muerthe et Modselle, France.Go Maryland. I had no idea they were still using the different states to signify where the regiment was from like from the ACW. Thought they intermixed everyone (as far as different states go). Perhaps Maryland conscripts? I'll have to look into it more.
The Americans were not too happy about the British empowering the Japanese in the pacific.I think this is an ahistorical judgement made by peering through the lens of Pearl Harbour. There is little evidence that the US government had any real qualms about Japanese imperialism in China in 1914, or in 1917 when the Lancing-Ishii Agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lansing%E2%80%93Ishii_Agreement) included the USA's acknowledgement of Japan's "special status" in China, or 1919 when Woodrow Wilson signed off on the Treaty of Versailles which, among its many iniquities, handed over a chunk of China to Imperial Japan.
The Americans were not too happy about the British empowering the Japanese in the pacific.I think this is an ahistorical judgement made by peering through the lens of Pearl Harbour.
I think it is also questionable to call the capture of Tsingtao (Qingdao now) the springboard for Japanese empire-building.Hehe the weird thing is, it was a British documentary. :-P But I do agree with everything you've stated. Based off U.S. foreign policy of the time they probably didn't really give a damn.
1) I think it amazing that the British even reached out to the Japanese but was not surprised they kept their troops in reserve.Japan was Britain's ally at the time, and had declared war on Germany in August 1914. The British rather regarded Japan as the Great Britain of Asia. You know, plucky little island nation off the coast of a large continent, pioneer of industrialisation in its region, sea-faring people with a fine navy (substantially trained and equipped by Britain) and so on. When Admiral Togo attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur on 9th February 1904, his actions were favourably compared in London with the Royal Navy's attacks on the Danish fleet at Copenhagen during the Napoleonic War. Britain also has a long history of recruiting allies to make up for its own relatively small army, so what could be more natural viewed in the context of the time than that they should work with the Japanese?
Meanwhile, everyone missed the 150th anniversary of one of the last major battles of the Civil War: the Battle of Nashville.I am probably a bad person for imagining duelling Country & Western musicians...
That is NOT British drill, or anywhere else in the Commonwealth (or Empire as it was called back then). And that's not the way drill commands are given in the Commonwealth.
1807 British HMS 'Leopard' makes unprovoked attack on American USS 'Chesapeake'.
However, the presence of a warrant indicates that the Captain of the Leopard wasn't acting unilaterallyI am not certain that you are using the word "unilaterally" correctly. A unilateral act is not one performed without authority. A unilateral act is simply one undertaken by or on behalf of one side, or party only, without the agreement or involvement of any other. The warrant was certainly issued unilaterally, so it provides no shield to defend the captain of the Leopard from an accusation of acting unilaterally, I think.
If you were a captain of a ship off the coast of your own nation and some other country's ship comes up beside you and demand to arrest some of your sailors based on a piece of paper from their own country, how would you react in the age of sail? I'd a tell them to fuck off and tell them to contact US fleet command and have them take my sailors.
Mind you my comment is not based in patriotism. I'd think the British would do the exact same thing if a Russian ship did that to them off the coast of Australia. Especially back before wireless instant communication was available to check with your superiors on the validity of the document.
I had no idea Australia and New Zealand were also combatants in the Vietnam War.Oh yes, though you'd never think so from popular media depictions of the Vietnam War. It was very divisive in Australia, drove a stake through the heart of conscription here, and is commemorated in song: