A Brief History On May 16, 1943, modified British Lancaster bombers undertook Operation Chastise, a bombing raid against dams in the industrial heartland of Germany. Remarkable for the use of “bouncing” bombs that skipped across the water to roll down the inner faces of the dams before detonation, the daring raid breached two of the targeted dams and damaged a third dam, killing about 1,600 people. The RAF lost eight of the 19 bombers used in the raid. Digging Deeper Famous for its ingenuity, the “dambusters” raid ranks high among famous bombing raids, which also include: The Doolittle Raid of…
Browsing: Society
Read More
A Brief History On May 15, 2010, Australian 16 year old Jessica Watson completed a non-stop and solo unassisted sail voyage around the world, the youngest person to achieve this feat. Digging Deeper Watson piloted a 33.6 foot sailboat on her trip of seven months that covered nearly 20,000 nautical miles. She is just one of many people that achieved great feats before turning 18 years old, some of whom include: American Marjorie Gestring became the youngest Olympic Gold Medalist in 1936 when she won the 3-meter diving event at the age of 13. Eight Olympic champions have been age…
A Brief History On May 14, 2008, one more sports related riot took place in Manchester, England, when fans of the Zenit Football Club of St. Petersburg, Russia, went hand and foot with fans of the Rangers Football Club of Glasgow, Scotland. Digging Deeper During the 2008 UEFA Cup final held near Piccadilly Gardens of Manchester, a failure of a big screen TV that had been set up to allow football fans not in the stadium to watch the match triggered the riot. A crowd of 200,000 Rangers fans had made the trip to Manchester to watch their beloved team,…
A Brief History On May 12, 1982, a bayonet wielding assassin was wrestled into custody by the bodyguards of Pope John Paul II at Fatima, Portugal only a year after John Paul II had been shot and seriously wounded in another assassination attempt! The would be assassin was a defrocked Catholic priest, a journalist and lawyer, a veritable living cliché! At least one other attempt was to be made on John Paul’s life, this time foiled when the assassins suffered a fire while building the bomb intended for the murder. Digging Deeper Many world leaders have survived assassination attempts, including…
A Brief History On May 11, 1713, Finnish residents of Helsinki burned their own capital city to the ground rather than allow the Russian invaders to possess their city during the Great Northern War. The Russians, under Czar Peter the Great, had territorial designs on their neighbors just as the Russians of today under Vladimir Putin are trying to conquer Ukraine. Digging Deeper Ironically, it was the Russian residents of Moscow that burned their own city in 1812 to prevent Napoleon Bonaparte and his invading French Grande Armée from enjoying their pyrrhic victory over the Russians. The Soviets again used…