A Brief History On October 22, 1943, 569 bombers of the Royal Air Force dropped firebombs on the German city of Kassel, population around 240,000, killing 10,000 and making another 150,000 homeless. The firestorm that resulted from the bombing destroyed the city center and burned for 7 days. Important military targets were virtually untouched. American and British (Allied) bombing of cities, especially bombing raids with incendiary devices meant to cause massive “firestorms” have become a topic of contention as a military tactic, and is sometimes referred to as “terror bombing.” So what is firebombing cities? A legitimate military tactic or…
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A Brief History On October 16, 1991, a disturbed man crashed his pick-up truck into a Luby’s cafeteria in Texas, and proceeded to shoot and kill 24 people, including himself. George Hennard wounded another 27 with gunshots, which up until June 11, 2016 had been the worst non-school mass shooting in United States history. (On that day 49 people were gunned down at the Orlando, Florida gay nightclub called “Pulse.”) When Stephen Paddock, age 64, opened fire from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas on a crowd attending a country music concert and…
A Brief History On October 14, 1938, the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk made its first flight, leading to an eventual production run of 13,738 of the rugged fighters. Although often referred to as “obsolete” at the beginning of World War II, and famously rejected by the British for combat in the Northern European theater, the plane flown by the Flying Tigers with its intimidating shark mouth paint job became one of the main Allied fighters of World War II. (Previously, on November 6th we featured an article, The Hawker Hurricane: The Most Underrated Fighter Plane of World War II, and on…
A Brief History On October 13, 2013 (too many “13’s” in that date?), 115 Indians were killed and another 110 injured during the Hindu festival of Navratri at the Ratangahr Mata Temple in India when a stampede occurred on a bridge. Today, we list 10 such unhappy times when a religious activity or celebration went terribly wrong. (BTW, Today, October 13, 2017, is Friday the 13th!) Digging Deeper 1. Navratri Festival, 2013. A common Indian Hindu festival held each Autumn for 10 days and 9 nights, the method and reason for celebrating varies from region to region. Dancing, recitals, plays, rituals…
A Brief History On October 12, 1945, Corporal Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia was awarded the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor given to only the bravest of our military heroes. A remarkable aspect of this award was that Doss was a lifelong conscientious objector and refused to bear arms against any other person, enemy or not. Digging Deeper Doss was the nation’s first conscientious objector to be honored by a Medal of Honor, and to make the feat that much less likely, he lived to receive his medal and died at the age of 87 in…