First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - FEBRUARY 18th

Nikos Kazantzakis, Quote

“Teachers are those who use themselves as bridges, over which they invite their students to cross; then having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create bridges of their own.”

~ Nikos Kazantzakis

Wikiquote (Nikos Kazantzakis (February 18, 1883 – October 26, 1957) was a Greek novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.)

This Day in History

February 18th, 1229

Crusades collage: Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by Pope Urban II and the Catholic Church, with the stated goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem - Jerusalem considered a sacred city and symbol of all three major Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)

Crusades:
1229 - Sixth Crusade; Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor signs a ten-year truce with al-Kamil, regaining Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem with neither military engagements nor support from the papacy.
1268 - Battle of Rakvere; The Livonian Brothers of the Sword are defeated by Dovmont of Pskov.

Wikipedia  Image: The Siege of Antioch, from a 15th-century miniature; After the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey of Bouillon, leader of the First Crusade, became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem; Baldwin I of Jerusalem; Medieval image of Peter the Hermit, leading knights, soldiers and women toward Jerusalem during the First Crusade; The Battle of Ager Sanguinis, 1337 miniature; Pope Innocent III excommunicating the Albigensians, Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders; The capture of Jerusalem marked the First Crusade's success.


February 18th, 1332

Battle of Amba Sel: Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi again defeats the army of Lebna Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia

Ethiopia:
Amda Seyon I Emperor of Ethiopia begins his campaigns in the southern Muslim provinces.

Wikipedia  Photo: Blue Nile Falls; Ethiopia a magical and timeless land; credit Oklahoma State University, University of California - San Diego School of Medicine, National Geographics.


February 18th, 1637

Eighty Years' War Collage Eighty Years' War: Battle off Lizard Point; Battle between Dutch and Spanish men-of-war. Oil on copper, Naval Museum of Madrid

Eighty Years' War:
1637 - Battle off Lizard Point; Off the coast of Cornwall, England a Spanish fleet intercepts an important Anglo - Dutch merchant convoy of 44 vessels escorted by 6 warships, destroying or capturing 20 of them.

Wikipedia  Painting: Siege of the Schenkenschans by Gerrit van Santen; Relief of Leiden after the siege, (1574); Frederick Henry and Ernst Casimir at the siege of 'sHertogenbosch by Pauwels van Hillegaert; Disarming the waardgelders in Utrecht, 31 July 1618, by Joost Cornelisz. Droochsloot; Swearing of the Peace of Münster by Gerard ter Borch.
Battle off Lizard Point: Battle between Dutch and Spanish men-of-war. Oil on copper, Naval Museum of Madrid.


February 18th, 1797

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions French Revolutionary Wars, Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay): Battle begins when a British fleet engages the French Revolutionary Navy fleet in an unusual night action

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1797 - Invasion of Trinidad; Sir Ralph Abercromby and a fleet of 18 British warships invade Trinidad.
1814 - Battle of Montereau; (was fought near Montereau-Fault-Yonne on February 18, 1814 and resulted in the victory of the French under Napoleon Bonaparte against the Austrians and the Württembergers under the King of Württemberg.)

Wikipedia  Painting: Battle of Trafalgar: The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) in the battle of Trafalgar; Napoleon in Berlin (Meynier). After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806; Battle of the Bridge of Arcole Napoleon Bonaparte leading his troops over the bridge of Arcole, by Horace Vernet; Napoleon as King of Italy (Appiani); Napoleon Crossing the Alps (David). In 1800 Bonaparte took the French Army across the Alps, eventually defeating the Austrians at Marengo; Charge of the Russian Imperial Guard cavalry against French cuirassiers at the Battle of Friedland, 14 June 1807; Battle of Borodino as depicted by Louis Lejeune. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars; Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, a painting by Adolph Northen; Wellington at Waterloo by Robert Alexander Hillingford; Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.
Battle of the Nile (Battle of Aboukir Bay).


February 18th, 1861

Lincoln Memorial: an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument American Civil War: Battle of Antietam; Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland American Civil War, Battle of Mobile Bay: at Mobile Bay near Mobile, Alabama, Admiral David Farragut leads a Union flotilla through Confederate defenses and seals one of the last major Southern ports

American Civil War:
1861 - In Montgomery, Alabama, Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America.
1865 - Burning of Columbia; The Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire.

Wikipedia  Image: ● Lincoln Memorial; an American national monument built to honor the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln - located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. across from the Washington Monument.
● The northern army led by George McClellan and the southern army led by Robert E. Lee met at Antietam Creek, Maryland in September, 1862. It was a bloody battle where 13,000 Confederates and 12,000 Union troops died in just one day. McClellan had hesitated to attack before the battle thus letting the southern troops regroup. Also, he had saved reserves and refused to use them at the end of the battle thinking that Lee was holding reserves for a counterattack, even though those reserves didn't exist. The Union victory stopped Lee's northward advance and was a turning point in the war.
Battle of Antietam / Stone Bridge at Antietam Battlefield - Sharpsburg, Maryland
Battle of Mobile Bay (1890) by Xanthus Russell Smith.
Although photography was still in its infancy, war correspondents produced thousands of images, bringing the harsh realities of the frontlines to those on the home front in a new and visceral way. The Atlantic.


February 18th, 1900

The Second Boer War (Dutch: Tweede Boerenoorlog, Afrikaans: Tweede Vryheidsoorlog or Tweede Boereoorlog) was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State

Second Boer War: Battle of Paardeberg; Bloody Sunday - Imperial forces suffer their worst single-day loss of life.

Wikipedia  Photo: Second Boer War; (Dutch: Tweede Boerenoorlog, Afrikaans: Tweede Vryheidsoorlog or Tweede Boereoorlog) was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State.


February 18th, 1930

Elm Farm Ollie Nicknamed 'the Sky Queen' in 1930 she became the first cow to fly in an airplane

Elm Farm Ollie becomes the first cow to fly in a fixed-wing aircraft, and also the first cow to be milked in an aircraft.

Wikipedi  Photo: Elm Farm Ollie Nicknamed "the Sky Queen", in 1930 she became the first cow to fly in an airplane. Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on 18 February 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States.


February 18th, 1932

World War II: Second firestorm raid on Germany, the Royal Air Force conducts an air raid on the town of Kassel, killing 10,000 and rendering 150,000 homeless World War II: Battle of Leyte Gulf; Battle of Leyte Gulf; The first kamikaze attack: A Japanese plane carrying a 200-kilogram (440 lb) bomb attacks HMAS Australia off Leyte Island World War II: German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944) World War II: Eastern Front (World War II); was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945

Pre World War II:
1932 - The Empire of Japan; declares Manzhouguo (the obsolete Chinese.) independent from the Republic of China.
1938 - During the Nanking Massacre Nanking Safety Zone International Committee renamed "Nanking International Rescue Committee" and safety zone in place for refugees falls apart.
World War II:
1942 - Sook Ching Massacre; The Imperial Japanese Army begins the systematic extermination of perceived hostile elements among the Chinese in Singapore.
1943 - The Nazis arrest the members of the White Rose movement.
1943 - Joseph Goebbels delivers his Sportpalast speech.
Post World War II:
1946 - Royal Indian Navy mutiny; Sailors of the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Bombay harbour, from where the action spread throughout the Provinces of British India, involving 78 ships, twenty shore establishments and 20,000 sailors.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bombing of Dresden in World War II; August Schreitmüller's sculpture 'Goodness' surveys Dresden after a firestorm started by Allied bombers in 1945. USS Bunker Hill was hit by kamikazes piloted by Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa and another airman on 11 May 1945. 389 personnel were killed or missing from a crew of 2,600; Ensign Kiyoshi Ogawa, who flew his aircraft into the USS Bunker Hill during a Kamikaze mission on 11 May 1945; Kamikaze Missions - Lt Yoshinori Yamaguchi's Yokosuka D4Y3 (Type 33 Suisei) "Judy" in a suicide dive against USS Essex. The dive brakes are extended and the non-self-sealing port wing tank is trailing fuel vapor and/or smoke 25 November 1944.
German V1 flying-bomb and V2 Rockets - Preparations for a Salvo Launch of V-2 Rockets in the Heidelager near Blizna (Poland) (1944), credit German History in Documents and Images GHDI.

Eastern Front (World War II); Germans race towards Stalingrad. August 1942; Soviet children during a German air raid in the first days of the war, June 1941, by RIA Novosti archive; Soviet sniper Roza Shanina in 1944. About 400,000 Soviet women served in front-line duty units Caucasus Mountains, winter 1942/43; Finnish ski patrol: the invisible enemy of the Soviet Army with an unlimited supply of skis; Men of the German Engineers Corps cross a river which is swollen after the first autumn rains, to strengthen bridges linking the German positions on the central front in Russia. by Keystone / Getty Images. October 1942; Russian snipers fighting on the Leningrad front during a blizzard. Photo by Hulton Archive / Getty Images, 1943; German soldiers surrendering to the Russians in Stalingrad, the soldier holding the white flag of surrender is dressed in white so that there could be no doubt of his intentions, a Russian soldier is on the right of the photograph. by Keystone / Getty Images, January 1943.


February 18th, 1955

Cold War: often dated from 1947–1991, was a sustained state of political and military tension between the powers of the Western world, led by the United States and its NATO allies, and the communist world, led by the Soviet Union, its satellite states and allies Cold War: in Moscow, downed American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers is sentenced to ten years imprisonment by the Soviet Union for espionage

Cold War:
1954 - Operation Teapot; Teapot test shot "Wasp" is successfully detonated at the Nevada Test Site with a yield of 1.2 kilotons. (Wasp is the first of fourteen shots of the Teapot series.)

Wikipedia  Photo: Lockheed C-130 Hercules; RAF Menwith Hill, a large site in the United Kingdom, part of ECHELON and the UKUSA Agreement; New Zealand nuclear test, British nuclear tests near the Malden and Christmas Islands in the mid-Pacific in 1957 and 1958; Nevada nuclear tests, Nevada Division of Environmental Protection Bureau of Federal Facilities.
U2, Lockheed TR-1 in flight.


February 18th, 1977

Space Shuttle Enterprise - NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, headed for Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York

The Space Shuttle Enterprise test vehicle is carried on its maiden "flight" on top of a Boeing 747.

Wikipedia  Photo: In this photo provided by NASA, the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft moves into place for mating underneath the space shuttle Enterprise for transport to New York at Washington Dulles International Airport, Friday, in Sterling, Va. Enterprise is expected to go on display at the Intrepid Sea Air and Space Museum in New York. Bill Ingalls/NASA/AP.
● Space shuttle Enterprise, riding on the back of the NASA 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, lands at JFK International Airport, Friday, April 27, in New York. Enterprise is eventually going to make its new home in New York City at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.


February 18th, 1978

Ironman Triathlon

The first Ironman Triathlon competition takes place on the island of Oahu, won by Gordon Haller.

Wikipedia  Photo: Ironman Triathlon competition - consisting of a 2.4-mile (3.86 km) swim, a 112-mile (180.25 km) bicycle ride and a marathon 26.2-mile (42.2 km) run, raced in that order and without a break.


February 18th, 1979

Sahara Desert;</a>the world's largest and hottest desert and third largest desert, after Antarctica and the Arctic, covering most of North Africa, making it almost as large as China or the United States

Snow falls in the Sahara Desert in southern Algeria for the only time in recorded history.

Wikipedia  Photo: Sahara Desert; the world's largest and hottest desert and third largest desert, after Antarctica and the Arctic, covering most of North Africa, making it almost as large as China or the United States.


February 18th, 2007

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2007 - Samjhauta Express bombings (2007); Terrorist bombs explode on the Samjhauta Express in Panipat, Haryana, India killing 68 people.
2001 - Inter-ethnic violence between Dayaks and Madurese breaks out in Sampit, Indonesia, that will ultimately result in more than 500 deaths and 100,000 Madurese displaced from their homes.

Wikipedia  Photo: Middle East satellite image, NASA. ● Camels are seen early morning on a beach in the Marina area of Dubai October 16, 2008. (Steve Crisp, Reuters) ● A portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad burns during clashes between rebels and Syrian troops in Selehattin, near Aleppo, on July 23, 2012. (Bulent Kilic, AFP / GettyImages) ● Egyptians gather in their thousands in Tahrir Square to mark the one year anniversary of the revolution on Jan. 25, 2012 in Cairo Egypt. Tens of thousands have gathered in the square on the first anniversary of the Arab uprising which toppled President Hosni Mubarak. (Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images) ● Black smoke rises above the Tehran skyline as supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi burn tires and other material in the streets as they fight running battles with police to protest the declared results of the Iranian presidential election in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, June 13, 2009. (Ben Curtis, AP) ● The Iron Dome defense system fires to interecpt incoming missiles from Gaza in the port town of Ashdod, Thursday, Nov. 15, 2012. (Tsafrir Abayov, AP)


February 18th, 2010

WikiLeaks publishes the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the soldier now known as Chelsea Manning.

WikiLeaks: publishes the first of hundreds of thousands of classified documents disclosed by the soldier now known as Chelsea Manning.

Wikipedia  Photo: Bradley Manning Photo: GETTYMore than three years on, the trial of Bradley Manning. .