First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JUNE 3rd

Sydney Smith, Quote

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.”

“Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of every thing.”

“Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect.”

~ Sydney Smith

Wikiquote (Sydney Smith (June 3, 1771 – February 22, 1845) was an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric.)

This Day in History

June 3rd, 1326

Rondane National Park is established as Norway's first national park

Treaty of Novgorod: delineates borders between Russia and Norway in Finnmark.

Wikipedia Photo: Rondane National Park (Norwegian: Rondane nasjonalpark) is the oldest national park in Norway, established on 21 December 1962; Norwegian fjords; Norwegian Praise of Winter; Polar bears, credit National Geographics.

June 3rd, 1539

Conquistadors from Spain: The De Soto expedition; Romantic painting, created in 1847, envisions de Soto's 1541 encounter with the Mississippi River and the Indians who lived nearby. (Discovery of the Mississippi, by William H. Powell, Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C.)

Conquistador:
1539 - Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

Wikipedia  Image: The De Soto expedition; Romantic painting, created in 1847, envisions Hernando de Soto's 1541 encounter with the Mississippi River and the Indians who lived nearby. (Discovery of the Mississippi, by William H. Powell, Capitol Rotunda, Washington, D.C. - Ellen K. Coughlin. © The Chronicle of Higher Education)

June 3rd, 1621

Second Anglo-Dutch War: As provided in the Treaty of Westminster, Netherlands cedes New Netherlands to England New Amsterdam: New Orange, 1674 (looking approximately north; the canal in the centre of the image (today's Broad St.) runs roughly north-south) The Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks New York, most populous city in the United States of America, and one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world

New Netherlands:
1621 - The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherlands.

Wikipedia  Painting: The Royal Prince and other vessels at the Four Days Fight, 11–14 June 1666 (Abraham Storck) depicts a battle of the Second Anglo–Dutch War.
Photo: Statue of Liberty; Manhattan, New York City, credit National Geographics; The Manhattan Bridge (completed 1909), spanning the East River between Brooklyn and Manhattan Island, New York City, credit: Larry Brownstein / Getty Images; Central Park, Manhattan, New York City, flanked by the apartment buildings of the Upper East Side, credit: © Bruce Stoddard—FPG International; New York city, Manhattan through a fish eye view, credit Victor Barajas Photography.

June 3rd, 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: American Civil War: First Battle Between Ironclads; CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads

American Civil War:
1861 - Battle of Philippi; (also called the Philippi Races) – Union forces rout Confederate troops in Barbour County, Virginia, now West Virginia, in first land battle of the War.
1864 - Battle of Cold Harbor; Union attack Confederate troops in Hanover County, Virginia.

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
● First Battle Between Ironclads: CSS Virginia/Merrimac (left) vs. USS Monitor, in 1862 at the Battle of Hampton Roads.
● 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.

June 3rd, 1940

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 World War II: The Battle of Dunkirk ends with a German victory and with Allied forces in full retreat

World War II:
1940 - The Luftwaffe bombs Paris.
1940 - Battle of Dunkirk; Ends with a German victory and with Allied forces in full retreat.
1941 - Razing of Kandanos; razes the Greek village of Kandanos to the ground, killing 180 of its inhabitants.
1942 - Aleutian Islands Campaign; Battle of Dutch Harbor - Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.
1943 - Zoot Suit Riots; In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths.

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.

June 3rd, 1980

Tornado Collage: A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud.

Tornadoes:
1980 - Grand Island tornado outbreak (1980): Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska taking five lives.

Wikipedia  Photo: Weather Front System; Tornado near Anadarko, Oklahoma; North Dakota Tornado; F3 Category Tornado Swirls Across A South Dakota Prairie by Carsten Peter; A waterspout parallels a lightning strike over Lake Okeechobee in Florida, by Fred K. Smith, National Geographics, Extream Instability.

June 3rd, 1989

In the People's Republic of China, the April Fifth Movement leads to the Tiananmen incident

Tiananmen Square protests: The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

Wikipedia  Photo: Tiananmen incident April 5th, 1976 (The incident occurred on the traditional day of mourning, and removal of the displays of mourning - The Gang of Four, ordered the Square to be cleared) ● Tiananmen Square protests of 1989; The “Unknown Rebel”, taken by Jeff Widener, 1989 ● A month before the crackdown, momentum was already gathering as thousands of students swarmed in the square on May 4, 1989 to call for greater freedom of speech and democracy, credit Peter Turley, Corbis.

June 3rd, 1991

Global Earthquake epicenters

Earthquake:
1991 - Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

Wikipedia  Image: Preliminary Determination of Epicenters / Aleppo Syria; Anchorage, Alaska - March 28, 1964 Prince William Sound USA earthquake and tsunami; 8.9 Mega Earthquake Strikes Japan; Tsunami Swirls Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture March 12 2011. credit NOAA / NGDC, NOAA National Geophysical Data Center, USGS, National Geographics.

June 3rd, 2017

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2017 - London Bridge attack; Eight people are murdered and dozens of civilians are wounded by Islamist terrorists. Three of the attackers are shot dead by the police.

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)