First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - JULY 7th

Robert A. Heinlein, Quote

“Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it.”

~ Robert A. Heinlein

Wikiquote (Robert A. Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre in his time.)

This Day in History

July 7th, 1456

Joan of Arc Collage: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke

Hundred Years' War, Joan of Arc:
1456 - Retrial of Joan of Arc; A retrial verdict acquits Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death.

Wikipedia  Painting: Joan of Arc: An artist's interpretation, since the only known direct portrait has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490) (1485); Joan of Arc's Death at the Stake, by Hermann Stilke (1843); Jeanne d' Arc, by Eugene Thirion (1876); Joan at the coronation of Charles VII, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in (1854); Joan of Arc and Prophet-French Pilgrimage; Joan interrogated in her prison cell by Cardinal Winchester, by Hippolyte Delaroche, (1824); Saint Joan of Arc, Vatican City; Joan of Arc in Battle, by Hermann Anton Stilke.

July 7th, 1777

American Revolutionary War Collage American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, by Thomas Buttersworth (1768-1842)

American Revolutionary War:
1777 - Battle of Hubbardton: American forces retreating from Fort Ticonderoga are defeated.

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).
Painting: Battle of Cape Saint Vincent, by Thomas Buttersworth (1768-1842).

July 7th, 1807

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:
1807 - Fourth Coalition: Peace of Tilsit between France, Prussia and Russia ends.

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).

July 7th, 1865

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:
1865 - four conspirators in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln are hanged.

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.

July 7th, 1898

Hawaiian Islands Chain Collage: Hawaiian Islands (Hawaiian: Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) from the island of Hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll (the northwesternmost island in Hawaii is Green Island, which is joined to the Kure Atoll)

U.S. President William McKinley, Newlands Resolution: annexes Hawaii as a territory of the United States.

Wikipedia  Hawaiian Islands, NOAA Satellite; Na Pali Coast, Kaua'i, by Diane Cook and Len Jenshel, National Geographic; Volcanic Coast, Haleakala National Park, by Paul Chesley, National Geographic; Living Earth - Pu'u 'O'o crater, by Frans Lanting; Volcano erupting on the Big Island in Hawaii in July by Alain Barbezat for National Geographic; The blue ocean line of Honolulu - an aerial view.
Hawaiian Islands (Hawaiian: Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometres) from the island of Hawaiʻi in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll (the northwesternmost island in Hawaii is Green Island, which is joined to the Kure Atoll).

July 7th, 1907

Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City

Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first Follies on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

Wikipedia  Image: Promotional artwork for 1912 Ziegfeld Follies; Ziegfeld Girl 1920s; Marjorie Leet She performed in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923 - 1925 and 1927.; Albertina Vitak was born in Chicago in 1907 to Czech parents. As a girl she became a prize swimmer and diver, winning competitions throughout the Midwest. At age 12 she secretly enrolled in dance with instructors at the Chicago Opera ballet to avoid her mother’s displeasure. She drilled in classical ballet and the new pantomimic style of dance introduced by the Ballet Russe. She debuted in the Follies of 1922 at age 15. creedit Ziegfeld-Follies.tumblr.

July 7th, 1911

The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues on July 7th, 1907.

The United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia sign the North Pacific Fur Seal Convention of 1911 banning open-water seal hunting, the first international treaty to address wildlife preservation issues.

Wikipedia  Photo: Elephant Seals and King Penguins, credit Paul Nicklen, National Geographic.

July 7th, 1915

World War I: Collage

World War I:
1915 - The First Battle of the Isonzo ends.
1915 - Militia officer Henry Pedris executed by firing squad at Colombo, Ceylon - an act widely regarded as a miscarriage of justice by the British colonial authorities.

Wikipedia  Photo: Trenches on the Western Front; a British Mark IV Tank crossing a trench; Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the Battle of the Dardanelles; a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. National Archives and Records Administration.

July 7th, 1928

Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri

Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.

Wikipedia  Photo: This photograph depicts a "new electrical bread slicing machine" in use by an unnamed bakery in St. Louis in 1930

July 7th, 1937

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:
1937 - Sino-Japanese War, Battle of Lugou Bridge: Japanese forces invade Beijing, China.
1941 - U.S. forces land in Iceland, taking over from an earlier British occupation.
1941 - Beirut is occupied by Free France and British troops.
1944 - Battle of Saipan: Largest Banzai charge of the Pacific War..
1945 - Liberation of the Philippines declared.

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.

July 7th, 1958

Alaska: the largest state in the United States by area, is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Alaska Statehood Act allowing Alaska to become the 49th U.S. state on January 3, 1959.

Wikipedia  Photo: Alaska; the largest state in the United States by area, is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait

July 7th, 1983

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: The Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological conflict and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991 American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war

Cold War:
1983 - Samantha Smith, a U.S. schoolgirl, flies to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Secretary General Yuri Andropov.

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. ● Samantha Smith, June 29, 1972 ● Samantha Smith (center) visiting the USSR upon the invitation of General Secretary of the Central Committee of CPSU Yuri Andropov in all-Union Artek pioneer camp on July 1, 1983. .

July 7th, 1991

Kingdom of Yugoslavia: (Serbo-Croatian: Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија) was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Aug. 30, 1995 by Oleg Stjepanovic (AP) ● Smoke rises from an ammunition depot in Bosnian Serb stronghold Pale near Sarajevo after NATO air strikes ● CK building in the moments after bombing ● Serbia marks the 10th anniversary of the Nato-led bombing campaign ● U.S. F-117 Nighthawk taxis to the runway before taking off from Aviano Air Base, Italy, on March 24, 1999

Yugoslav Wars:
1991 - The Brioni Agreement ends the ten-day independence war in Slovenia against the rest of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Wikipedia  Map: Kingdom of Yugoslavia; Belgrade, Yugoslavia; A twilight moon rises above the Kamniske mountains and Slovenia’s Sava River Valley, Slovenia, credit National Geographic; Yugoslavia, November 1977, credit National Geographic.
Photo: 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina / Aug. 30, 1995 by Oleg Stjepanovic (AP) ● Smoke rises from an ammunition depot in Bosnian Serb stronghold Pale near Sarajevo after NATO air strikes ● CK building in the moments after bombing ● Serbia marks the 10th anniversary of the Nato-led bombing campaign ● U.S. F-117 Nighthawk taxis to the runway before taking off from Aviano Air Base, Italy, on March 24, 1999.

July 7th, 2005

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2005 - London bombings of July 7th; A series of four explosions occurs on London's transport system killing 56 people including four alleged suicide bombers and injuring over 700 others.
2002 - A scandal breaks out in the United Kingdom when news reports accuse MI6 of sheltering Abu Qatada, the supposed European Al-Qaeda leader.
1997 - Iraqi Kurdish Civil War; Operation Hammer (1997) - Turkish Armed Forceswithdraw from northern Iraq after assisting the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

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)

July 7th, 2012

2012 Russian floods: At least 171 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia, source AFP / Getty Images

2012 Russian floods: At least 171 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia.

Wikipedia  Image: 2012 Russian floods: Russia held a day of mourning for at least 171 people who died in its worst flooding disaster as questions mounted over whether officials did enough to warn of the impending calamity. source AFP / Getty Images.

July 7th, 2016

Shooting of Dallas police officers: Former U.S. Army soldier Micah Xavier Johnson shoots fourteen policemen during an anti-police protest in downtown Dallas, Texas, killing five of them. He is subsequently killed by a robot-delivered bomb.

Shooting of Dallas police officers: Former U.S. Army soldier Micah Xavier Johnson shoots fourteen policemen during an anti-police protest in downtown Dallas, Texas, killing five of them. He is subsequently killed by a robot-delivered bomb.

Wikipedia  Image: Shooting of Dallas police officers: A member of the Dallas Police Choir passes the portraits of five fallen officers prior to a memorial service at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Tuesday, July 12, 2016. The officers, from left, Michael Krol, Brent Thompson, Lorne Ahrens, Michael Smith and Patrick Zamarripa, were killed and several others injured in a sniper attack in Dallas on Thursday night, July 7. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)