A Brief History On May 2, 1945, an American Artillery Battalion intercepted a death march of concentration camp inmates being taken from the Dachau concentration camp to the Austrian border, in turn saving the lives of hundreds of the starving inmates. The rescuers must have seemed like angels sent directly from heaven to the doomed inmates, and even more surprising to those lucky survivors, the Americans that saved them were all of Japanese ancestry, part of the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, a subunit of the 442nd Infantry Regiment that was composed of Nisei, second generation Japanese Americans. Digging Deeper While…
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A Brief History On June 25, 1950, over 75,000 North Korean soldiers flooded into the Republic of Korea, on the southern end of the Korean peninsula. This invasion was the beginning of the Korean War, which raged from 1950 until 1953. Digging Deeper The Outbreak of the Korean War Within a week, the United Nations called for military aid for South Korea. The United States and Turkey were the first to answer the call. By July, U.S. and Turkish forces were fighting on the side of South Korea. The Turkish Army Infantry Brigade that was sent to fight in South…
A Brief History On April 29, 1483, the Kingdom of Castile captured the main island of the Canary Islands, Gran Canaria, leading to Spanish ownership of the islands to this day. Consisting of many smaller islands as well as the 7 “main” islands, the largest island is Tenerife, and Gran Canaria is the third largest island with an area of 600 square miles. (For comparison, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, home to Cleveland, has an land area of 457 square miles, and Cook County, Illinois, home to Chicago, has a land area of 945 square miles. With 596.7 square miles of land,…
A Brief History On April 28, 1881, the notorious outlaw and gunman known as Billy the Kid escaped from his jail cell where he was being held after he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. In a previous article, 5 Dashing, Daring, and Dynamic Escapes we discussed some famous/infamous escapes, and today we again explore the topic of people escaping from custody against all odds of success. Digging Deeper 1. Billy the Kid Cheats the Hangman by Escaping Jail, 1881. Often referred to as being named “William H. Bonney,” the Kid’s real name was probably Henry McCarty. And…
A Brief History On April 27, 1987, the United States declared Austrian President Kurt Waldheim to be persona non grata, meaning that although Waldheim was the head of state of a free nation he would not be allowed entry to the United States. Even more shocking, this same Kurt Waldheim had served as Secretary General of the United Nations from January of 1972 to December of 1981, in spite of having a past as an intelligence officer for the German Army during World War II in which he and his wife, Elisabeth, both were members of the Nazi party. Digging…