A Brief History On May 11, 1945, the man that would become the famous actor and philanthropist, Paul Newman, was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill CV-17, an Essex class aircraft carrier off the coast of Okinawa when not one, but two Japanese suicide (Kamikaze) aircraft slammed into the ship, killing nearly 350 men and injuring another 300, with another 43 missing. Newman, a crew member on carrier aircraft torpedo bombers survived the devastating attack when the pilot of his plane was ill, and the crew had to wait for his recovery to report to the ship. He went on…
Browsing: May 11
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A Brief History On May 11, 1891, while paying a State visit to Lake Biwa, Otsu, Japan, heir to the throne of the Russian Empire Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich (the future Czar Nicholas II, Emperor of Russia) was attacked with a sword by one of the Japanese policemen escorting him, wounding the Tsesarevich. Digging Deeper Lucky for Nicholas his cousin, Prince George of Greece and Denmark (seriously, Greece and Denmark? How did that happen?) was on the spot with his cane, with which he blocked the second sword strike, saving the life of Nicholas. The first strike had landed on Nicholas’s…
A Brief History On May 11, 1862, Confederate sailors sunk their own ship, the CSS Virginia, in the James River outside of Norfolk, Virginia to avoid capture by Union troops. Ships have been intentionally sunk by their own crews for a variety of reasons, usually to avoid capture by the enemy, sometimes after battle damage and sometimes while the ships were perfectly sound. At times, even whole fleets were scuttled. German U-boats would be scuttled when forced to the surface and unable to continue the fight to avoid capture of sensitive encoding equipment, let alone the boats themselves, a common…
A Brief History On May 11, 1862, the CSA ironclad, CSS Virginia, was scuttled in the James River to avoid capture by Union forces. The Virginia had formerly been the USS Merrimac and had fought the USS Monitor in the first battle of ironclad armored ships. Over its long and illustrious history, the US Navy has lost a variety of vessels, and here we list some of the most famous of those losses. Digging Deeper 10. Bonhomme Richard, 1779. Starting life as a French merchant ship named Duc de Duras built in 1765, she was given to the fledgling US Navy to fight the…
A Brief History On May 11, 2014, 69 countries and territories celebrate Mother’s Day, including the United States. Digging Deeper Anna Jarvis of West Virginia celebrated the first (modern version) Mother’s Day in 1908 as a memorial to her mother. Thinking this idea was so brilliant, Jarvis began a campaign to create the Mother’s Day holiday. In 1914 her efforts became successful with the official establishment of the holiday, and many countries began to celebrate the holiday as well. Jarvis always claimed exclusive authorship of the holiday, ignoring previous somewhat similar celebrations in the 1800’s. Jarvis actually went to the…
