First Confidential

THIS DAY IN HISTORY - DECEMBER 13th

Heinrich Heine, Quote

“Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”

~ Heinrich Heine

Wikiquote (Heinrich Heine (born Harry Heine, changed to Christian Johann Heinrich Heine following his conversion to Christianity from Judaism) (December 13, 1797 – February 17, 1856) was one of the most significant German poets of the 19th century.)

This Day in History

December 13th, 1577

Sir Francis Drake finishes his circumnavigation of the Earth

Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth, England, on his round-the-world voyage.

Wikipedia  Image: The Golden Hinde: Drake started his famous circumnavigation of the world from Plymouth, England, November 15, 1577, passed through the Straight of Magellan (southern tip of South America) into the Pacific, coasted up the western shores of the Americas, crossed to Asia and the Philippines, and finally returned to Britain on September 26, 1580.


December 13th, 1636

Massachusetts Bay Colony militia. This event took place on December 13, 1636 and the Massachusetts General Court ordered the organization of the Colony's militia companies into three regiments: The North, South and East Regiments, by National Guard Bureau Heritage Series

National Guard:
1636 - The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. (This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.)

Wikipedia  Painting: Massachusetts Bay Colony militia. This event took place on December 13, 1636 and the Massachusetts General Court ordered the organization of the Colony's militia companies into three regiments: The North, South and East Regiments. by National Guard Bureau Heritage Series.


December 13th, 1643

English Civil War: (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers)

English Civil War:
1643 - Battle of Alton; akes place in Hampshire, England.

Wikipedia  Painting: English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians (Roundheads) and Royalists (Cavaliers);
John Milton publishes Areopagitica; Battle of Naseby, victory of the Parliamentarian New Model Army; Battle of Marston Moor, 1644; "Cromwell at Dunbar", by Andrew Carrick Gow; Oliver Cromwell; King Charles I, painted by Van Dyck; "And when did you last see your father?" by William Frederick Yeames.


December 13th, 1769

Dartmouth College founded in 1789 (A view of the Sherman Fairchild Physical Science Center and Wheeler Hall from the tower of Baker Memorial Library)

Dartmouth College is founded by the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, with a Royal Charter from King George III, on land donated by Royal Governor John Wentworth.

Wikipedia  Photo: Dartmouth College founded in 1789 (A view of the Sherman Fairchild Physical Science Center and Wheeler Hall from the tower of Baker Memorial Library).


December 13th, 1809

Doctor Ephraim McDowell performed the first ovariotomy, removing a 22 pound tumor, credit Museum of Surgical Science

Doctor Ephraim McDowell performed the first ovariotomy, removing a 22 pound tumor.

Wikipedia  Painting: Doctor Ephraim McDowell performed the first ovariotomy, removing a 22 pound tumor, credit Museum of Surgical Science.


December 13th, 1862

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:
1862 - Battle of Fredericksburg; Confederate General Robert E. Lee defeats the Union Major General Ambrose E. Burnside.

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.


December 13th, 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: 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:
1937 - The Second Sino-Japanese War; Battle of Nanjing - Chinese resistance after the fall of Nanjing, defended by the National Revolutionary Army under the command of General Tang Shengzhi, falls to the Japanese.
1937 - The Nanjing Massacre; Japanese troops begin carrying out several weeks of raping and killing of civilians and suspected Chinese resistance after the fall of Nanjing.
1939 - Battle of the River Plate; Captain Hans Langsdorff of the German Deutschland class cruiser (pocket battleship) Admiral Graf Spee engages with Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, HMS Ajax and HMNZS Achilles.
1941 - Hungary and Romania declare war on the United States.
1943 - Massacre of Kalavryta; by German occupying forces in Greece.

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.

Attack on Pearl Harbor: Battleship Row: taken from a Japanese plane at the beginning of the attack. The explosion in the center is a torpedo strike on the USS Oklahoma. Two attacking Japanese planes can be seen: one over the USS Neosho and one over the Naval Yard; Battleship Row: aerial view of moorings on the southern side of Ford Island, three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In upper left is the sunken California, with smaller vessels clustered around her. Diagonally, from left center to lower right are: Maryland, lightly damaged, with the capsized Oklahoma outboard. A barge is alongside Oklahoma, supporting rescue efforts.[1] Tennessee, lightly damaged, with the sunken West Virginia outboard. Arizona, sunk, with her hull shattered by the explosion of the magazines below the two forward turrets. Note dark oil streaks on the harbor surface, originating from the sunken battleships; USS Arizona (BB-39) during the attack; Sailors in a motor launch rescue a survivor from the water alongside the sunken USS West Virginia (BB-48) during or shortly after the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor. credit National Archives.


December 13th, 1949

The Potsdam Conference: held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine (1947–1948): lasted from 30 November 1947, the date of the United Nations General Assembly vote for the Partition Plan for Palestine, to the termination of the British Mandate itself on 14 May 1948

Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: (1947 - 1948)
1949 - The Knesset votes to move the capital of Israel to Jerusalem.

Wikipedia  Photo: Potsdam Conference; Clement Attlee, Harry Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, July 1945. (The Potsdam Conference: held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, occupied Germany, from July 17 to August 2, 1945)
Civil War in Mandatory Palestine; Arab volunteers fighting in Palestine in 1947; Jewish soldiers at Katamon, Jerusalem; Jerusalem convoy, 1948.


December 13th, 1972

Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia. The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi)

Apollo program: Apollo 17; Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or "Moonwalk" - they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon. (The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.)

Wikipedia  Photo: Apollo Program: Apollo 11 first manned Moon landing and the first walk on the surface on the moon. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle. Apollo 11 Commander Neil Armstrong took this photograph with a 70mm lunar surface camera. Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Sea of Tranquility for two and a half hours while crewmate Michael Collins orbited above in the command module Columbia.
The Blue Marble is a famous photograph of the Earth, taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft, at a distance of about 45,000 kilometres (28,000 mi).


December 13th, 2000

The 'Texas 7': a group of prisoners who escaped from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas and go on a robbery spree, during which police officer Aubrey Hawkins is shot and killed

The "Texas 7" a group of prisoners who escape from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas and go on a robbery and killing spree.

Wikipedia  Image: The "Texas 7"; a group of prisoners who escaped from the John Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas and go on a robbery and killing spree.