First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - AUGUST 21st

Leon Trotsky, Quote

“Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence, and enjoy it to the full.”

~ Leon Trotsky

Wikiquote (Leon Trotsky (born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein; November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.)

This Day in History

August 21st, 1192

Japan: an island nation in East Asia (Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south - The characters that make up Japan's name mean 'sun-origin', which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the 'Land of the Rising Sun' Japan's samurai, farmer, artisan, merchant class system (Shinōkōshō) is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms

Japan:
1192 - Minamoto Yoritomo becomes Seii Tai Shōgun and the de facto ruler of Japan. (Traditional Japanese date: July 12, 1192).

Wikipedia  Image: Japan: an island nation in East Asia (Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south - The characters that make up Japan's name mean 'sun-origin', which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the 'Land of the Rising Sun'. The Meiji Restoration (明治維新 Meiji-ishin).


August 21st, 1680

Conquistadors (Spanish 'conquerors') were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers at the service of the Spanish Empire (sailing beyond Europe, conquering territory and opening trade routes, colonizing much of the world for Spain and Portugal in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries)

Conquistador:
1680 - Pueblo Revolt: Pueblo Indians capture Santa Fe from Spanish.

Wikipedia  Image: Conquistadors (Spanish "conquerors") were soldiers, explorers, and adventurers at the service of the Spanish Empire (sailing beyond Europe, conquering territory and opening trade routes, colonizing much of the world for Spain and Portugal in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries)
● Christopher Columbus setting foot in the New World in 1492 ● Conquistadors praying before a battle ● Conquistadors and their Tlaxcalan allies enter Tenochtitlan ● The surrender of Granada in 1492. Muhammad XII before Ferdinand and Isabella ● Detail of Velázquez's Portrait of Juan de Pareja a contemporary morisco Spaniard, slave and afterwards freedman, assistant and trust man of Diego Velazquez ● Conquistador, jQuey-deviantart.


August 21st, 1689

Glorious Revolution Collage: William of Orange launched a colossal armada to seize the throne from Catholic King James II

Glorious Revolution: Jacobite Rising (1688 - 1746);
1689 - Battle of Dunkeld: part of the Jacobite rising commonly called Dundee's rising in Scotland.

Wikipedia  Painting: Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688: James II King of England & James VII King of Scots, King of Ireland and Duke of Normandy ● William III, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, stadtholder of Guelders, Holland, Zealand, Utrecht and Overijssel ● Henry Sydney, author of the Invitation to William, which was signed by six noblemen (both Whigs and Tories) and one bishop. He has been described as "the great wheel on which the Revolution rolled" ● Francisco Lopes Suasso, who partly financed the invasion ● William of Orange launched a colossal armada to seize the throne from Catholic King James II ● New England's Siege of Louisbourg (1745) by Peter Monamy.


August 21st, 1770

James Cook: portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; British explorer James Cook's ship was named the HMS Endeavour; Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, Dr Daniel Solander and Dr John Hawkesworth, credit National Library of Australia (NLA) digital collections; Captain James Cook (1728-1779) is shown meeting Nootka leader Muquinna (died 1798) at Nootka Sound on what is now Vancouver Island, in 1778, during his explorations of Canada’s northwest coast, credit Canadian Military History

James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

Wikipedia  Painting: James Cook, portrait by Nathaniel Dance-Holland, c. 1775, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; British explorer James Cook's ship was named the HMS Endeavour; Captain James Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, Lord Sandwich, Dr Daniel Solander and Dr John Hawkesworth, credit National Library of Australia (NLA) digital collections; Captain James Cook (1728-1779) is shown meeting Nootka leader Muquinna (died 1798) at Nootka Sound on what is now Vancouver Island, in 1778, during his explorations of Canada’s northwest coast, credit Canadian Military History.


August 21st, 1772

King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.King Gustav III completes his coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

King Gustavus III completes his Coup d'état by adopting a new Constitution, ending half a century of parliamentary rule in Sweden and installing himself as an enlightened despot.

Wikipedia  Painting: Gustav III, King of Sweden from 1771 until his death.


August 21st, 1778

American Revolutionary War Collage American Revolutionary War: British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondicherry

American Revolutionary War:
1778 - British forces begin besieging the French outpost at Pondicherry.

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).
"The East offering its riches to Britannia", 1778. Wall painting from the head offices of the British East India Company, 1778 (The British Library: Foster 245, Roma Spiridione), National Archives UK.


August 21st, 1808

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:
1808 - Peninsular War - Battle of Vimeiro; British and Portuguese forces led by General Arthur Wellesley defeat French force under Major-General Jean-Andoche Junot near the village of Vimeiro, Portugal.

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).


August 21st, 1863

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:
1863 - Lawrence massacre; is destroyed by Confederate guerrillas Quantrill's Raiders.

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.


August 21st, 1918

World War I: Collage

World War I:
1918 - Second Battle of the Somme; begins.

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.


August 21st, 1942

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:
1942 - Eastern Front; a Nazi flag is installed atop Mount Elbrus.
1942 - Guadalcanal campaign; Battle of the Tenaru; American forces defeat an attack by Imperial Japanese Army soldiers.
1944 - Dumbarton Oaks Conference; Prelude to the United Nations.
1944 - Operation Tractable; Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, France.
1945 - Physicist Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the Demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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.


August 21st, 1959

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 Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an executive order proclaiming Hawaii the 50th state of the union.

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).


August 21st, 1963

Vietnam War: Operation Swift; U.S. Marines engage the North Vietnamese in battle in the Que Son Valley Vietnam War: Boeing B-52 Stratofortress

Vietnam War:
1963 - Xa Loi Pagoda raids: the Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces loyal to Ngo Dinh Nhu, brother of President Ngo Dinh Nhu, vandalises Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving an estimated hundreds dead.

Wikipedia  Photo: Vietnam_War; Side view of an HH-53 helicopter of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron as seen from the gunner's position on an A-1 of the 21st Specialist Operations Squadron. (USAF Photo by Ken Hackman), Boston Globe;
Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, credit Free Republic;
Vietnam War: The Big Picture / Boston Globe.


August 21st, 1968

Soviet Union-dominated Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring; on the same day, Nicolae Ceauşescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet maneuver, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals

Nicolae Ceauşescu, leader of Communist Romania, publicly condemns the Soviet led Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, encouraging the Romanian population to arm itself against possible Soviet reprisals.

Wikipedia  Photo: Prague: Soviet invasion Czechs confronting Soviet troops in Prague, August 21, 1968. Soviet forces had invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the reform movement known as the Prague Spring. Libor Hajsky—AFP / Getty Images


August 21st, 1986

'Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcanic Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a 20-kilometer range.

Carbon dioxide gas erupts from volcano Lake Nyos in Cameroon, killing up to 1,800 people within a 20-kilometer range.

Wikipedia  Photo: Limnic Eruptions. Lake Nyos. A limnic eruption is a rare type of natural disaster in which carbon dioxide suddenly erupts from deep lake water, suffocating wildlife, livestock and humans.


August 21st, 1992

Ruby Ridge Standoff in Idaho

Ruby Ridge Standoff in Idaho.

Wikipedia  Photo: Green hills and mountain scenic, Mt Blakiston & Ruby Ridge, Waterton Lakes National Park. Getty Images


August 21st, 2007

Hurricane Collage: (A tropical cyclone is a storm system characterized by a low-pressure center surrounded by a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce strong winds and heavy rain)

2007 - Hurricane Dean (a category 5 hurricane), at peak intensity while approaching the Yucatán Peninsula.

Wikipedia  Image: Hurricane Andrew sequence, NASA ● Hurricane Mitch at peak intensity (formed October 22, 1998 - Dissipated November 5, 1998) ● Hurricane Katrina taken on August 28, 2005, at 11:45 AM EDT by NOAA when the storm was a Category Five hurricane ● Hurricane Jeanne September 23, 2004, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ● PDC Global Hazards Atlas displaying 3 hour precipitation accumulation, typhoon Evan (04P), with JTWC positions, segments, and winds...over the South Pacific Ocean ● Satellite imagery provided by NOAA and taken by the Japan Meteorological Agency's MTSAT weather satellite shows Typhoon Roke as it approaches Japan, September 20, 2011. Over 1.3 million ordered to evacuate in Japan ahead of Typhoon Roke.


August 19th, 2013

List of modern conflicts in the Middle East

Modern conflicts in the Middle East, social unrest and terrorist attacks:
2013 - Ghouta chemical attack; Hundreds of people are reported killed by chemical attacks in the Ghouta region of Syria.

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)