First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JUNE 16th

Robert G. Ingersoll, Quote

“Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.”

~ Robert G. Ingersoll

Wikiquote (Robert G. Ingersoll (August 11, 1833 – July 21, 1899) was a Civil War veteran, American political leader, and orator during the Golden Age of Freethought, noted for his broad range of culture and his defense of agnosticism. He was nicknamed "The Great Agnostic".)

This Day in History

June 16th, 363

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that began growing on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to become one of the largest empires in the ancient world Roman Empire Decline and Fall of Rome

Roman Empire:
363 - Emperor Julian marches back up the Tigris and burns his fleet of supply ships. During the withdrawal Roman forces suffering several attacks from the Persians.

Wikipedia  Photo: ● Ancient roman statue ● Detail of Head from Roman Statue of Antinous, credit Corbis ● Statue of Neptune, Trevi Fountain, Rome ● International Sand Sculpture Festival, FIESA 7 ancient Rome.
Relief from a 3rd-century sarcophagus depicting a battle between Romans and Germanic warriors; the central figure is perhaps the emperor Hostilian / Depiction of the Menorah on the Arch of Titus in Rome.

June 16th, 1487

Wars of the Roses: a series of dynastic wars fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet; the houses of Lancaster and York (whose heraldic symbols were the 'red' and the 'white' rose, respectively) for the throne of England

Wars of the Roses:
1487 - Battle of Stoke Field, the final engagement of the Wars of the Roses.

Wikipedia  Image: Wars of the Roses; a series of dynastic wars fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the houses of Lancaster and York (whose heraldic symbols were the "red" and the "white" rose, respectively) for the throne of England

June 16th, 1755

French and Indian War Collage: (1754–1763) is the name for the North American theater of the Seven Years' War

French and Indian War: the French surrender Fort Beauséjour to the British, leading to the expulsion of the Acadians.

Wikipedia  Painting: Major Washington and a wounded General Braddock at the Battle of Monongahela. Lemercier, 1854; Portrait of Washington was painted in 1772 by Charles Willson Peale, and shows Washington in uniform as a colonel of the Virginia Regiment. The original hangs in Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. It is the earliest known depiction of Washington; British troops under Edward Braddock near Fort Duquesne, Pa., during the French and Indian War. Credit: MPI / Hulton Archive / Getty Images; Indian from Death of General Wolfe painting By Benjamin West in 1770; Death of General James Wolfe by stray cannon shot at Battle of Quebec in 1759 Painted by Benjamin West in 1770.

June 16th, 1779

American Revolutionary War Collage Great Siege of Gibraltar: Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain American Revolutionary War: First Battle of Groix otherwise known as Cornwallis's Retreat

American Revolutionary War:
1779 - Great Siege of Gibraltar; Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
1795 - First Battle of Groix; otherwise known as Cornwallis's Retreat.

Wikipedia  Paintings: Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutz; Battle of the Chesapeake, French (left) and British (right) lines; Battle of Bunker Hill, The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill by John Trumbull; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 13, 1782, by John Singleton Copley; Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau at Yorktown, 1781; "The surrender at Saratoga" shows General Daniel Morgan in front of a French de Vallière 4-pounder; Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).
● Great Siege of Gibraltar; The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, September 1782, by John Singleton Copley.
● Cornwallis's Retreat by Thomas Luny

June 16th, 1815

Napoleonic Wars: (1803–15) were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before the Battle of Waterloo. Battle of Waterloo

French Revolutionary Wars / Napoleonic Wars:
1815 - Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, two days before the Battle of Waterloo. Battle of Waterloo.

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 Waterloo, June 17, 1795, William Sadler.

June 16th, 1903

The Ford Motor Company is incorporated

The Ford Motor Company is incorporated.

Wikipedia  Photo: 1903 Ford Model A, credit DougW of RemarkableCars.com at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Navada.

June 16th, 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:
1940 - Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain becomes Chief of State of Vichy France (Chef de l'État Français).
1940 - A Communist government is installed in Lithuania.

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 16th, 1997

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
1997 - Dairat Labguer massacre; In Algeria, 50 people are killed.

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)

June 16th, 2012

Shenzhou 9 was a manned spacecraft flight of China's Shenzhou program, launched at 18:37:24 CST (10:37:24 UTC), 16 June 2012.

China successfully launches its Shenzhou 9 spacecraft, carrying three astronauts – including the first female Chinese astronaut, Liu Yang – to the Tiangong-1 orbital module.

Wikipedia  Shenzhou 9 spacecraft on the launch pad, AFP ● Blast off sequence from the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Jiuquan, northwest China's Gansu Province, June 16, 2012. (Xinhua/Li Gang) ● Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Center showing China's astronauts Jing Haipeng, Liu Wang and Liu Yang