A Brief History On February 2, 1943, the last of the German army at Stalingrad surrendered to the Soviet Red Army, often called “the turning point” of World War II in Europe. Germany never recovered offensive momentum after the defeat at Stalingrad, having lost about a million men killed, as many as 5,600 combat aircraft, over 4,300 tanks, and over 15,000 artillery pieces. Digging Deeper The Germans were forced to redeploy men and equipment from other theaters to shore up their Eastern Front, affecting the course of all future battles in Europe. The Pacific Theater was an entirely different theater,…
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A Brief History On February 1, 1950, the first successful night landing of jet aircraft onto an aircraft carrier occurred when the US Navy landed an octet of Grumman F9F Panthers onto the deck of the USS Valley Forge. Digging Deeper Jet aircraft first flew in 1939, when the Heinkel He-178 took to the air. By the end of World War II, Britain and the US had joined Germany in producing operational jet fighters, but aircraft carrier technology of the day made the use of jets on carriers problematic. The jets generally had higher landing speeds and higher stall speeds…
A Brief History On February 29, 2020, the American Trump administration and the Afghan Islamist group known as The Taliban, met in Doha, Qatar, and signed an agreement by which the US would pull out military forces and bring an end to the longest war in US history. Digging Deeper The Taliban agreed to cease hostilities to allow the US to safely pull out of Afghanistan in exchange for the US to stop offensive action. Unfortunately, both parties did not bother to include the Afghan government, an incredible oversight. The US lived up to its promise of restricting military operations…
A Brief History On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H. An incredible audience of 110 million people watched the bittersweet finale, with their beloved characters planning their return to a non-war America. Digging Deeper A major downer in the episode was key character Hawkeye Pierce receiving psychiatric care due to extreme trauma caused by an incident where he witnessed a mother smother her own baby to avoid detection by a communist patrol. The rest of the episode is a blur eclipsed by this…
A Brief History On February 27, 2015, Russian physicist Boris Nemtsov found out personally why publicly taking issue with Vladimir Putin is dangerous to his health. A liberal leaning politician, Nemtsov had become a vocal critic of Russian dictator Putin since about 2000, ultimately leading to the assassination of Nemtsov. Digging Deeper Nemtsov had expressed fear of being murdered at Putin’s behest only a couple weeks before the murder, a murder by five Chechen men contracted for the killing. Nemtsov was gunned down while walking across Moscow’s Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge shortly before midnight. Despite being the victim of a crime,…