To All,
Good Sunday Morning August 25.Looks like another beautiful day here with a high of 84 and clear skies. Errands and outside work again today. Hope your weekend has been going well.
Warm Regards,
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Make it a Good Day
This day in Naval and Marine Corps History (thanks to NHHC)
Here is a link to the NHHC website: https://www.history.navy.mil/. Go here to see the director's corner for all 83 H-Grams
Today in Naval and Marine Corps History
1864 CSS Tallahassee, commanded by Cmdr. John Taylor Wood, returns to Wilmington, N.C. to refuel on coal. During her more than two week raid, CSS Tallahassee destroys 26 vessels and captures seven others.
1927 USS Los Angeles (ZR 3) rises to a near-vertical position due to the sudden arrival of a cold air front that lifts the airships tail, causing it to rise before she can swing around the mast parallel to the new wind direction. Los Angeles only suffers minor damage but the affair demonstrates the risks involved with high mooring masts.
1943 Depth charges from USS Patterson (DD 392) sink the Japanese submarine RO-35, 170 miles southeast of San Cristobal Island, Solomon Islands.
1944 USS Picuda (SS 382), in attack on Japanese convoy at the western entrance to the Babuyan Channel, sinks destroyer Yunagi 20 miles north-northeast of Cape Bojeador, Philippines and merchant tanker Kotoku Maru.
1951 23 fighters from USS Essex (CV 9) escort Air Force heavy bombers in an attack on Najin, Korea due to the target being beyond range of land-based fighters.
2017 Hurricane Harvey Strikes the Texas Gulf Coast. The Navy responds by sending 10 aircraft to provide humanitarian assistance that lasts until Sept. 4.
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This Day In World History August 25
0357 Julian Caesar defeats the Alamanni at Strasbourg in Gaul.
1346 Edward III of England defeats Philip VI's army at the Battle of Crecy in France.
1758 The Prussian army defeats the invading Russians at the Battle of Zorndorf.
1765 In protest over the stamp tax, American colonists sack and burn the home of Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson.
1830 The "Tom Thumb" steam locomotive runs its famous race with a horse-drawn car. The horse wins because the engine, which had been ahead, breaks down.
1862 Union and Confederate troops skirmish at Waterloo Bridge, Virginia, during the Second Bull Run Campaign.
1864 Confederate General A.P. Hill pushes back Union General Winfield Scott Hancock from Reams Station where his army has spent several days destroying railroad tracks.
1875 ""Captain" Matthew Webb becomes the first man to swim across the English Channel.
1916 The National Park Service is established as part of the Department of the Interior.
1921 The United States, which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally signs a peace treaty with Germany.
1925 A. Phillip Randolph organizes the Sleeping Car Porters' Union.
1940 The first parachute wedding ceremony is performed by Rev. Homer Tomlinson at the New York City World's Fair for Arno Rudolphi and Ann Hayward. The minister, bride and groom, best man, maid of honor and four musicians were all suspended from parachutes.
1941 British and Soviet forces enter Iran, opening up a route to supply the Soviet Union.
1943 The Allies complete the occupation of New Georgia.
1944 Paris is liberated from German occupation by Free French Forces under General Jacques LeClerc.
1948 The House Un-American Activities Committee holds first-ever televised congressional hearing.
1950 President Harry Truman orders the U.S. Army to seize control of the nation's railroads to avert a strike.
1980 Zimbabwe joins the United Nations.
1981 Voyager 2 spacecraft makes its closest approach to Saturn.
1989 NASA scientists receive stunning photographs of Neptune and its moons from Voyager 2.
1989 Mayumi Moriyama, formerly head of Japan's Environmental Agency, becomes Japan's first female cabinet secretary
1991 Croatian War of Independence: Battle of Vukovar begins, an 87-day siege of a Croatian city by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA), supported by various Serbian paramilitary forces.
1991 Belarus gains independence from the USSR.
1991 The Airbus A340 makes its first flight.
2012 Severe flooding in Myanmar.
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OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT Thanks to the Bear
Skip… For The List for the week beginning Monday, 19 August 2024 and ending Sunday, 25 August 2024… Bear🇺🇸⚓️🐻
OPERATION COMMANDO HUNT (1968-1972)…
From the archives of rollingthunderremembered.com post of 19 August 1969..
As more than half-a-million young Americans departed the scene of the historic 1969 Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, N.Y. to resume their protests of the Vietnam war in their respective hometowns in America, nearly 250 caskets containing the remains of the brave young men who had perished on the battlefields of Southeast Asia during the week of Woodstock were arriving home from the war. Alas, the war had more than three years and twenty thousand American KIAs to go. Remember?
(Please note the eye-watering ongoing revamp of the RTR website by Webmaster/Author Dan Heller, who has inherited the site from originators RADM Bear Taylor, USN, Retired, and Angie Morse, "Mighty Thunder")…
To remind folks that these are from the Vietnam Air Losses site that Micro put together. You click on the url below and can read what happened each day to the aircraft and its crew. .Micro is the one also that goes into the archives and finds these inputs and sends them to me for incorporation in the List. It is a lot of work and our thanks goes out to him for his effort.
From Vietnam Air Losses site for "for 25 August This one was personal as both were friends of mine..skip
25-Aug: https://www.vietnamairlosses.com/loss.php?id=2986
Vietnam Air Losses Access Chris Hobson and Dave Lovelady's work at: https://www.VietnamAirLosses.com.
This is a list of all Helicopter Pilots Who Died in the Vietnam War . Listed by last name and has other info
https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/KIAINDEX.HTM
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Nothing but raw power and torque ... and a lot of money to support it!
http://www.youtube.com/embed/GzXVLbs41Ew
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From the King's Proclamation to Richie's MiG by W. Thomas Smith Jr.
08/24
This Week in American Military History:
Aug. 23, 1775: Less than two months after the Second Continental Congress issues its "Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms [against the British]" in which the Congress resolves "to die free men rather than live as slaves," King George III issues his own proclamation declaring the American colonies to be in a state of rebellion. The king adds, "not only all our Officers, civil and military, are obliged to exert their utmost endeavours to suppress such rebellion, and to bring the traitors to justice, but that all our subjects of this Realm, and the dominions thereunto belonging, are bound by law to be aiding and assisting in the suppression of such rebellion, and to disclose and make known all traitorous conspiracies and attempts against us, our crown and dignity."
Aug. 23, 1864: Union Naval forces under the command of Adm. David Glasgow Farragut – best known for purportedly uttering the command, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" – take Fort Morgan, effectively ending the near-month-long battle of Mobile Bay.
Aug. 24, 1814: British forces under the command of Maj. Gen. Robert Ross close-with and defeat a mixed American force of Continental Army regulars, Marines, sailors, and militia under overall command of U.S. Army Brig. Gen. William Henry Winder in the battle of Bladensburg, Maryland on the road to Washington, D.C. during the war of 1812. The disastrous defeat of the Continentals at Bladensburg will enable the British to march on, sack, and burn the nation's capitol within a few hours. But according to legend, the British are so impressed by the indomitable stand of the American Marines and sailors – who "broke two British regiments" during the fighting – that the commandant's house and the Marine barracks will be spared the torch when Washington is burned.
Aug. 25, 1944: U.S. and French Army forces liberate Paris. The Germans fall back. The BBC reports: "This evening French, American and Senegalese troops marched triumphantly down the Champs Elysee to ecstatic cheers of Parisians, young and old."
Aug. 28, 1862: The Second battle of Bull Run (known to many Southerners as Second Manassas) opens between Union Army forces under the command of Maj. Gen. John Pope and Confederate Army forces under Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson (Gen. Robert E. Lee in overall command). Within days, Confederate forces will drive Union forces from the field, not unlike what happened at First Bull Run/Manassas on July 21, 1861.
Aug. 28, 1972: U.S. Air Force Capt. Richard Stephen Richie, flying an F-4 Phantom, shoots down his fifth MiG over North Vietnam, becoming the Air Force's first ace of the war. But to hear Richie tell it, it was just a ride. "My fifth MiG kill was an exact duplicate of a syllabus mission, so I had not only flown that as a student, but had taught it probably a dozen times prior to actually doing it in combat," he says.
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Thanks to Interesting Facts
I have been a tea drinker all my life and did not drink coffee until three years ago after the doctors rearranged my insides and I was having a problem starting them up again. Then my wife had me try coffee with some mocha in it. So now I have one each day but still have my tea and am sipping away as I work on the List today….skip
Sip On These 7 Facts About Tea
Besides water, no beverage is consumed by more individuals across the globe than tea. For millennia, this beloved drink has been favored by many cultures, from those in China who first cultivated tea to modern customers in quaint cafés. Here are seven refreshing facts about tea for those who want a dash of history and culture with their drink.
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Tea Bags Were Popularized by Accident
Before individual tea bags came into wide use, it was more common to make an entire pot of tea at once by pouring hot water over tea leaves and then using a strainer. In 1901, Wisconsin inventors Roberta C. Lawson and Mary Molaren filed a patent for a "tea leaf holder," a concept that resembles the tea bags we use today. It wasn't until about seven years later, however, that another individual inadvertently helped popularize the concept of tea bags — at least according to legend. Around 1908, American tea importer Thomas Sullivan reportedly sent samples of tea inside small silken bags to his customers. His clients failed to remove the tea leaves from the bags as Sullivan assumed they would, and soon Sullivan realized that he'd stumbled onto an exciting new concept for tea brewing. He later reimagined the bags using gauze, and eventually paper.
Tea bags were booming in popularity throughout the United States by the 1920s, but it took a while for residents of the United Kingdom to adopt the concept. In fact, tea bags wouldn't make their way to the U.K. until 1952, when Lipton patented its "flo-thru" bag, but even then the British weren't keen to change their tea-brewing ways. By 1968, only 3% of tea brewed in the U.K. was done so using tea bags, with that number rising to 12.5% in 1971. By the end of the 20th century, however, 96% of U.K. tea was brewed with bags.
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The British Have Their Own Official Standard for the Perfect Cup of Tea
The British are serious about tea. So much so that British Standards — a national body that produces technical specifications for products and services — released an edict in 1980 on the official British guidelines for making the perfect cup of tea. Though some may disagree with the standard, the rules include the following: Use a porcelain pot and a ratio of two grams of tea per every 100 ml of water, brew for six minutes, maintain a temperature of 60 to 85 degrees Celsius (140 to 185 degrees Fahrenheit) when serving the tea, and add milk to the mug first if using tea that's already been steeped.
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Herbal Tea Isn't Actually Tea
This may be a shocking revelation, but herbal "teas" like chamomile and peppermint aren't officially teas at all. In order for a drink to be classified as tea, it must come from the Camellia sinensis plant, from which many white, green, oolong, and black teas do. Herbal teas, however, are known as tisanes, or more plainly infusions that incorporate various leaves, fruits, barks, roots, flowers, and other edible non-tea plants. So while the experience of drinking a minty tea may be indecipherable from drinking a warm cup of green tea, the two beverages fall into completely different categories from a scientific gastronomic perspective.
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The World's Largest Tea Bag Was 551 Pounds
Saudi Arabia is the site of at least two notable tea records. On September 20, 2014, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the owner of a company called Rabea Tea unveiled a record-setting tea bag weighing 551 pounds and 2.56 ounces, earning it the distinction of being world's largest tea bag. Eight years later, also in Saudi Arabia, a company called Triple Nine Tea set the record for brewing the largest cup of hot tea — 11,604.28 gallons.
When it comes to the largest cup of iced tea, however, the achievement is proudly held in the American South. On June 10, 2016, the residents of Summerville, South Carolina, banded together to create the biggest jug of sweet tea ever made (2,524 gallons), using 210 pounds of loose leaf tea, 1,700 pounds of sugar, and over 300 pounds of ice.
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Besides Boston, Several Other U.S. Cities Held "Tea Parties"
Vintage illustration features the Boston Tea Party.Credit: Keith Lance/DigitalVision Vectors via Getty Images
While most Americans are familiar with the Boston Tea Party — in which colonists dumped chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor as a protest against "taxation without representation" — fewer are aware that many similar events took place along the Eastern Seaboard in the months that followed. Just nine days after the protest in Boston, the Philadelphia Tea Party occurred on December 25, 1773. Although no tea was destroyed as in the Boston protest, a ship carrying a large cargo of tea was refused on its way to Philadelphia, and the captain — under the threat of being tarred and feathered — returned both ship and cargo to England.
The following year saw even more "tea parties," including the Charleston Tea Party in November 1774, in which the captain of a tea-toting ship feigned ignorance about his cargo but was ultimately forced to dump the ship's contents into the harbor. Additional protests took place in New York; Annapolis, Maryland; Wilmington, North Carolina; Greenwich, New Jersey; and other American cities. Though none went down in history to the degree of the Boston Tea Party, they were all critical acts of rebellion — against taxation and ultimately British rule — that contributed to the start of the American Revolutionary War.
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Turkey Consumes the Most Tea per Capita of Any Country
Though no country consumes more tea than China overall – 1.6 billion pounds each year — there are several other nations whose tea-drinking numbers are even more staggering when broken down per capita. At the top of that list is Turkey, as each tea-loving Turk consumes around seven pounds of tea annually, compared to just 1.25 pounds per Chinese citizen (as of 2014).
Turkish individuals are particularly fond of black tea, and they average three to five cups per day, which comes out to a staggering 1,300 cups per year, give or take. Though they've already set the record, tea drinking was also on the rise in Turkey during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Turks are so proud of tea as a foundation of their culture that in 2020, the country petitioned UNESCO to add Turkish tea to the organization's Intangible Cultural Heritage List. After Turkey, Ireland finishes second on the list of tea-drinking countries per capita, with the United Kingdom coming in third.
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Cheese-Topped Tea Is Popular in Asia
Though the combination of cheese and tea may sound somewhat incompatible, it's a beloved and delicious beverage that has grown in popularity throughout Asia over the last decade or so. Cheese tea is made as a cold beverage using green or black tea, and is topped with a layer of milk and cheese that's then sprinkled with salt. The drink is a relatively new invention, having originated around 2010 at nighttime drink stalls on the streets of Taiwan, though it's since boomed in popularity throughout Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and China.
Asia isn't alone, however, when it comes to incorporating cheese into their caffeinated beverages. Though it's not tea, a Scandinavian coffee drink called Kaffeost features cubes of dried cheese soaking up the liquid inside a mug of hot coffee. And in Colombia, locals add savory globs of melted cheese to a regional hot chocolate known as chocolate santafereño.
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Thanks to Shadow
Begin forwarded message: Go Figure?
From: FBI Mike
FBI Systematically Mishandled Classified Info
Tyler Durden's Photo by Tyler Durden
Friday, Aug 23, 2024 - 01:20 PM
Authored by Ken Silva via Headline USA,
Talk about irony: The FBI, which was willing to use deadly force
over Donald Trump allegedly mishandling classified documents, has
been systematically mishandling similar information for years,
according to bombshell findings released Thursday by Justice
Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Pallets of FBI
boxes containing potentially classified information were found
sitting in an unsecured warehouse. PHOTO: DOJ-IG
The DOJ-IG said it discovered the FBI's mishandling of classified
information while auditing a contract related to how the bureau
destroys electronics containing "sensitive-but-unclassified"
information, as well as classified national security information.
According to Horowitz's audit, the FBI labels computers that
handle such information when it sends them to a facility to be
destroyed. However, it does not label internal hard drives
extracted from those computers. The FBI also doesn't properly
track thumb drives and disk drives containing information of
varying classification levels, according to Horowitz.
Compounding the security risk is the fact that those unmarked
internal hard drives, thumb drives and disk drives often end up
in a physically unsecured warehouse.
Horowitz said that when his staff visited an FBI "Media
Destruction Team" facility last October, they found
"non-accountable" hard drives and other electronic storage
devices sitting in an open pallet-sized box. Horowitz said he's
not disclosing details about the facility since it's not secured.
"A [property-turn-in] staff member told us that the pallet for
the loose media was unsecured for extended periods, sometimes
spanning days or even weeks because PTI would wrap the pallets
and move them to the Facility shelves only when the box reached
full capacity," the Inspector General said.
During the same visit last October, Horowitz said his staff also
found a container from January 2022 that identified its contents
as "non-accountable."
"Notably, the container's shrink wrapping was torn, and boxes
inside were visibly open and contained hard drives marked
Secret," he said.
Horowitz added that after his team spotted the box, the FBI's
Asset Management Unit "promptly secured" it with additional
shrink wrap. However, the FBI's PTI supervisor and contractor
told Horowitz that they would not be aware if someone was to take
hard drives from the pallets because these assets are not counted
or otherwise tracked.
According to the DOJ-IG, at least 395 people have access to the
FBI's unsecured facility as of May, including 28 task force
officers and 63 contractors from at least 17 companies.
"There is no physical barrier preventing FBI and non-FBI
personnel and contractors from other Facility operations from
accessing PTI's work area and the pallets of unsanitized assets
in the Facility shelving space," he said.
And even though there is apparently a door to the Media
Destruction Team's work area, the FBI doesn't close it to prevent
non-Asset Management Unit personnel from accessing the area, the
IG found.
If all those security failures weren't enough, Horowitz also said
one of the key surveillance cameras at the facility wasn't
working when his team visited. The FBI apparently told Horowitz
last December that it was installing a new camera there, but it
still wasn't in place when the DOJ-IG made a follow-up visit in
February.
"We believe that the combination of the FBI's lack of
accountability of the electronic storage media, lack of internal
physical access control, and lack of sufficient video
surveillance compounds the risk of media, potentially with
sensitive and classified information, being lost or stolen
without detection," Horowitz concluded.
It appears as if the problems identified by Horowitz have been
around for almost a decade, if not longer.
During his investigation, Horowitz said his staff determined that
an interim accreditation was granted in 2015, but had expired in
March 2016. An accredited open-storage secure area is a space
with reinforced construction in which classified materials, up to
and including at the Secret collateral level, may be stored.
"Following our observations, the FBI performed a site visit in
November 2023 to confirm the remediation of the security
enhancements required from a 2015 open storage inspection
checklist. The FBI granted the Facility its final open storage
accreditation in January 2024," he said.
"The FBI stated that the lack of final accreditation was an
administrative oversight and that enhancements had been completed
in the interim. However, the FBI could not provide evidence of
when the required enhancements were completed."
FBI whistleblower Greg Roman told Headline USA that the label
"Classified National Security Information" indicates some of the
FBI's unsecured boxes potentially contained Top Secret
information.
"Second, it appears the location of this facility warehousing
these hard drives, flash drives, floppy disks ie external media
is located in Cheverly, MD just outside of Washington DC: Does
that mean FBI offices from across the country were sending this
'stuff' to an undisclosed FBI facility near DC for proper
destruction?" Roman added.
"That might indicate why none of was marked."
The IG said his audit is still ongoing, but he wanted to alert
the FBI about its problems so they can fix them promptly. The IG
made a series of recommendations for how the FBI could improve
its security and disposal procedures, and the bureau agreed with
them all—such as placing its boxes of non-accountable hard drives
inside secure cages at the warehouse.
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Thanks to History Facts
6 Facts About Ancient Navigation
Thousands of years ago, the oceans seemed a lot wider, even unnavigable. Before mariners developed tried-and-true navigation techniques, sailing the seas involved a lot of guesswork — or, if you want it to sound cooler, "dead reckoning."
Slowly, our ancestors moved beyond their initial stabs in the dark. Some looked to the sky, using their new knowledge about the cosmos to help them better understand life on Earth. Others took a keen interest in the seas, learning to intuitively navigate the vast expanses based on their currents and swells.Nowadays, we have a relatively easy time getting around — thanks, GPS! — but it took a long time to get here. How were Polynesians able to cross thousands of miles of open ocean more than 3,000 years ago? Which seafaring society might have successfully used crystals to find their way? What persistent navigation myth just won't die? Read on and get your sea legs with these six facts.
Polynesians Were Pioneers of the Open Ocean
In the early days of ocean navigation, explorers stayed pretty close to the shoreline and used visible landmarks to mark their position. However, Polynesians, the first developers of open ocean exploration, set off from New Guinea and moved eastward in about 1500 BCE. After first traveling to the adjacent Solomon Islands, they gradually journeyed farther and farther east. Their vessel of choice was a double canoe with two hulls connected by crossbeams, kind of like a catamaran.Venturing out into the open ocean, these explorers eventually reached Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Tahiti. They then traveled more than 2,600 miles north to Hawaii — longer than the distance across the U.S. from Portland, Maine, to Seattle, Washington. By roughly 1,000 or possibly 1,200 CE, the descendants of those early explorers populated the entire Polynesian Triangle, the three corners of which are Hawaii, Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island), and New Zealand.The Polynesians didn't have any navigational instruments that we know of, so how did they do it? Although their navigation techniques were passed down orally, historians think they navigated using stars, ocean swells, the sun, the moon, and migratory birds. Some Pacific Islanders navigated simply by using the waves themselves. In 1976, a group of Polynesian canoeing enthusiasts made the Tahiti-Hawaii trip using no navigational instruments and a traditional voyaging canoe — a feat that's since been repeated several times.
Some Early Nautical Charts Were Made From Shells and Sticks
A nautical chart provides not only topographical information, but also details about the behavior of the sea, such as how tidal patterns interact. Today, we can easily read this data on screens and paper, but ancient Micronesian navigators called ri-metos recorded their knowledge using elaborate "stick charts" made from palm strips, coconut strips, and cowrie shells. As you might imagine, these charts weren't especially portable, so they were designed to be memorized before a voyage. The charts didn't follow any kind of uniform style, and some of them were only designed to be read by the person who created them, so they can be hard for modern viewers to interpret. We do know, though, that some charts depicted general ocean patterns, while others contained precise piloting instructions.
Early Magnetic Compasses Bore Little Resemblance to Their Modern Counterparts
Today, magnetic compasses are so ubiquitous that we just call them "compasses." They contain a magnetized needle that naturally lines up with the Earth's magnetic field, so the ends point to magnetic north and magnetic south (moving targets that are fairly close to true north and true south, but that can lead to errors when traveling very far north or very far south).Scientists don't know for sure who made the first compass, but they believe the first compasses to be used for navigation came from 11th- or 12th-century China. The first European usage of a compass was recorded at the end of the 12th century. These early prototypes used lodestones (pieces of naturally-occurring magnetic ore) or needles magnetized with lodestones that were then attached to sticks or corks so they could float in water. At first, magnetic compasses were used primarily as backup navigation aids, but as engineers got more savvy, compasses became more reliable. By the 13th century, the compass's design had graduated to a magnetized needle mounted on a pin at the bottom of a bowl. In time, a directional card with the 32 principal points of direction began to be mounted beneath the needle. The design of the card itself evolved, too: The north point was first marked by a spearhead and a "T" for the Latin word Tramontana, meaning "the north wind." Around 1490, these symbols were replaced with a fleur-de-lis, which is still commonly seen on compasses today.
Astrolabes Weren't Just Used for Navigation
The concept of an astrolabe, a device used to measure the positions of celestial bodies, dates back to ancient Greece in the third or second century BCE — although its exact origin is unclear. By the ninth century CE, astrolabes were highly developed and utilized in Arabic cultures. The devices made their way back to Europe in the 12th century, and the mariner's astrolabe was a standard piece of navigational equipment by the end of the 15th century, just in time for the Age of Exploration.Astrolabes are used to determine the locations of celestial bodies relative to the user. A disk called a "mater" holds a series of smaller rotating and sliding disks — one with Earth's latitude lines and another with well-known constellations and stars. A straight "rule," or bar, spins around that, and a sight helps determine the altitude of the sun or another star that can then be used as an anchor point. Astrolabes often came with specific plates that corresponded to the different latitudes of certain large cities, because the sky's geography is affected by one's latitude.While these devices were very useful for navigation, it wasn't their only claim to fame: In the Islamic world, they helped determine prayer times and the direction of Mecca. During the Middle Ages in Europe, they were consulted to help with decision-making, much like modern horoscopes. And more mundanely, they could also be used for making topographical surveys.
Vikings May Have Used Crystals to Navigate
The Vikings, a group of seafaring Scandinavian warriors, were also skilled ocean navigators. They began to populate Iceland — around 500 miles from their native Norway — in about 900 CE, even eventually reaching North America. The specifics of their navigation techniques are somewhat mysterious, but recent research indicates they may have used crystals.Because they sailed their longships in the far North Atlantic, Viking travelers benefitted from up to 24 hours of continuous daylight, but they encountered a lot of fog, too. Ancient Norse literature mentions "sunstones," stones that helped their holders find the sun — and scientists now think these may have really existed. In 2011, researchers used calcite crystals to pinpoint the location of the sun within 1 degree. It's not magic, although it sounds like it: Through polarization, crystals can show sunlight patterns that can't be seen with the naked eye.Another study from 2014 suggests these crystals may have been used in conjunction with a sun compass. Researchers simulated 3,600 trips between Norway and Greenland at the spring equinox and summer solstice, two dates marked on a disc believed to be a component of a sun compass. They found that by checking the crystals every few hours, the computer-generated voyages successfully reached Greenland 92% of the time.That study hasn't been replicated in the real world yet, but it offers some clues to how Viking navigators were able to navigate without the use of magnetic compasses or astrolabes.
Navigators Knew the Earth Was Round Earlier Than You Might Think
There's a persistent myth that Christopher Columbus "proved" the Earth was round in the 15th century during his voyage from Europe to the Americas, but he was many centuries too late. In fact, formally educated people knew the world wasn't flat starting way back in the third century BCE, while scientists and mathematicians may have known as early as the sixth century BCE. Columbus' surprise landing in the Americas had nothing to do with thinking the Earth was flat — he just thought the global circumference to be smaller than it is and believed he'd end up in Asia. This tenacious myth comes from a highly embellished 1828 biography of Columbus written by Washington Irving, better known for fictional works such as "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle."Like the aforementioned scientists and scholars, mariners were aware of the world's roundness very early on. Sailors observed that when viewing distant ships, the tops of sails and masts were visible before the decks and hulls of the vessels to which they were attached. And as they traveled to different points of the Earth, they also noted being able to see different constellations. Celestial navigation would have been pretty difficult otherwise.
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This Day in U S Military History
August 25
1883 – The signing of a Treaty of Protectorate formally ends Vietnam's independence. The name 'Vietnam' is officially eliminated, and the French divide Vietnam into northern and southern protectorates (Tonkin and Annam, respectively), both tightly under French control, although Annam retains its imperial Vietnamese administration. Southern Vietnam (Cochin China) has been a French colony since 1867. A general uprising in 1885 fails. In the Red River Valley of the north the French begin a period of twelve years of slaughter known as the 'pacification' of Tonkin.
1901 – Clara Maass (25), army nurse, sacrificed her life to prove that the mosquito carries yellow fever. Clara Louise Maass lost her life during scientific studies to determine the cause of yellow fever. A graduate of Newark German Hospital Training School for Nurses, she worked as an Army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In 1900, Maass returned to Cuba at the request of Maj. William Gorgas, chief sanitation officer. There she became embroiled in a controversy over the cause of yellow fever. To determine whether the tropical fever was caused by city filth or the bite of a mosquito, seven volunteers, including Maass, were bitten by the mosquitoes. Two men died, but she survived. Several months later she again volunteered to be bitten, this time suffering severe pain and fever. Maass died of yellow fever at the age of 25. In her memory, Newark German Hospital was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital and in 1952, Cuba issued a national postage stamp in her name. In 1976, the U.S. Postal Service honored Clara Louise Maass with a commemorative stamp.
1921 – The Battle of Blair Mountain, one of the largest civil uprisings in United States history and the largest armed rebellion since the American Civil War, begins. For five days in late August and early September 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers, called the Logan Defenders, who were backed by coal mine operators during an attempt by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired, and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.
1944 – "Dammit colonel, I'm looking up at Notre Dame!" became the battle cry of an on-going feud between two former Guard units as each claim the bragging rights as to which American unit was the first to actually enter the city of Paris just as the Germans abandoned it. The statement was made by Captain William Buenzle, a New Jersey Guardsman, commanding Troop A, 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron to his commander, Colonel Cyrus Dolph III, commander of New Jersey's 102nd Cavalry Group, the famous "Essex Troop" to which the 38th was assigned. The 38th was organized in 1942 from former Guardsmen of Iowa's 113th Cavalry Regiment. After the 38th was assigned to the 102nd in England it gained some New Jersey Guardsmen (including Buenzle) too. The other half of the 102nd Groups' compliment was it's own 102nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, also from New Jersey. Ever since landing on Omaha Beach on June 8th (D+2 after "D-Day") the Group had been an important part of the scouting 'eyes' of the Allied advance through Normandy. On this date each squadron was scouting ahead for major components of the Allied armies. The 38th was patrolling for the 4th U.S. Infantry Division and the 102nd scouting for the French 2nd Armored Division. Both entered Paris at about the same time by two different routes. While Buenzle's statement gives strength to the 38th's claim, and the veterans of each claim to this day that their squadron was the 'first,' its safe to say that Guardsmen were indeed the "first in Paris.
1945 – Captain John Birch of the US Army is shot dead in a scuffle with Chinese Communist soldiers. The liberation of China is becoming a race between the rival Nationalist and Communist forces. Troops of the Kuomintang, commanded by Generalisimo Chiang Kai-shek, enter Shanghai and Nanking, the prewar capital. The Japanese surrender at Nanking was accepted with Communist troops only 3 miles from the city. Communist forces are reported to be marching towards both cities. In Shanghai, the Communists claim workers are occupying factories and preparing to welcome the Communist forces. In the south, Communist forces are reported to be advancing in Canton and nearing Hong Kong. In the north they are closing in on Tientsin. In the 1950s, Robert Welch would create a right-wing, anticommunist organization called the John Birch Society. For Welch, Birch was "the first casualty in the Third World War between Communists and the ever-shrinking Free World."
2005 – Hurricane Katrina made landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura, Florida, as a Category 1 hurricane. Four days later it came ashore again near Empire, Buras and Boothville, Louisiana. The rescue and response effort was one of the largest in Coast Guard history, with 24,135 lives saved and 9,409 evacuations.
2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so.
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
GARMAN, HAROLD A.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, Company B, 5th Medical Battalion, 5th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Montereau, France, 25 August 1944. Entered service at: Albion, Ill. Born: 26 February 1918, Fairfield, Ill. G.O. No.: 20, 29 March 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. On 25 August 1944, in the vicinity of Montereau, France, the enemy was sharply contesting any enlargement of the bridgehead which our forces had established on the northern bank of the Seine River in this sector. Casualties were being evacuated to the southern shore in assault boats paddled by litter bearers from a medical battalion. Pvt. Garman, also a litter bearer in this battalion, was working on the friendly shore carrying the wounded from the boats to waiting ambulances. As 1 boatload of wounded reached midstream, a German machinegun suddenly opened fire upon it from a commanding position on the northern bank 100 yards away. All of the men in the boat immediately took to the water except 1 man who was so badly wounded he could not rise from his litter. Two other patients who were unable to swim because of their wounds clung to the sides of the boat. Seeing the extreme danger of these patients, Pvt. Garman without a moment's hesitation plunged into the Seine. Swimming directly into a hail of machinegun bullets, he rapidly reached the assault boat and then while still under accurately aimed fire towed the boat with great effort to the southern shore. This soldier's moving heroism not only saved the lives of the three patients but so inspired his comrades that additional assault boats were immediately procured and the evacuation of the wounded resumed. Pvt. Garman's great courage and his heroic devotion to the highest tenets of the Medical Corps may be written with great pride in the annals of the corps.
*SEAY, WILLIAM W.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, 62d Transportation Company (Medium Truck), 7th Transportation Battalion, 48th Transportation Group. Place and date: Near Ap Nhi, Republic of Vietnam 25 August 1968. Entered service at: Montgomery, Ala. Born: 24 October 1948, Brewton, Ala. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Seay distinguished himself while serving as a driver with the 62d Transportation Company, on a resupply mission. The convoy with which he was traveling, carrying critically needed ammunition and supplies from Long Binh to Tay Ninh, was ambushed by a reinforced battalion of the North Vietnamese Army. As the main elements of the convoy entered the ambush killing zone, they were struck by intense rocket, machinegun and automatic weapon fire from the well concealed and entrenched enemy force. When his convoy was forced to stop, Sgt. Seay immediately dismounted and took a defensive position behind the wheels of a vehicle loaded with high-explosive ammunition. As the violent North Vietnamese assault approached to within 10 meters of the road, Sgt. Seay opened fire, killing 2 of the enemy. He then spotted a sniper in a tree approximately 75 meters to his front and killed him. When an enemy grenade was thrown under an ammunition trailer near his position, without regard for his own safety he left his protective cover, exposing himself to intense enemy fire, picked up the grenade, and threw it back to the North Vietnamese position, killing 4 more of the enemy and saving the lives of the men around him. Another enemy grenade landed approximately 3 meters from Sgt. Seay's position. Again Sgt. Seay left his covered position and threw the armed grenade back upon the assaulting enemy. After returning to his position he was painfully wounded in the right wrist; however, Sgt. Seay continued to give encouragement and direction to his fellow soldiers. After moving to the relative cover of a shallow ditch, he detected 3 enemy soldiers who had penetrated the position and were preparing to fire on his comrades. Although weak from loss of blood and with his right hand immobilized, Sgt. Seay stood up and fired his rifle with his left hand, killing all 3 and saving the lives of the other men in his location. As a result of his heroic action, Sgt. Seay was mortally wounded by a sniper's bullet. Sgt. Seay, by his gallantry in action at the cost of his life, has reflected great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for 25 August, FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
25 August
1909: Louis Paulhan used a Voisin Airplane at Bethany, France, to set a 83-mile FAI distance record that lasted one day. (9) The Army leased Land for its first flying field at College Park. Pilot instructions began on 8 October 1909 (18) (21)
1914: Stephan Banic, a coal miner from Greenville, Pa., received a patent for the first workable parachute design. (20)
1916: Victor Carlstrom won the Curtiss Marine Trophy for flying a distance of 661.44 miles. (24)
1926: A pilot of a JN training aircraft, which carried an attached and stored parachute, opened the parachute at 2,500 feet above NAS San Diego. The parachute landed the plane with some minor damage. (24)
1932: Flying from Los Angeles to Newark, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to complete a nonstop transcontinental flight. (20) 1
943: Twelfth Air Force sent 140 P-38s from the 1 FG and 82 FG on the first mass, low-level, long-range strafing raid in World War II. Flying from airfields in Sicily, the P-38s flew tree-top level to attack airfields at Foggia, where they claimed 143 planes destroyed or damaged. (4)
1947: Maj Marion E. Carl (USMC) flew the jet-powered Douglas D-588-1 Skystreak to a new FAI speed record of 650.92 MPH. He broke the Skystreak's earlier record of 640.74 MPH. (9) (24)
1950: KOREAN WAR. FEAF directed Fifth Air Force to fly constant armed surveillance over enemy airfields to prevent the build-up of enemy air strength before the Inchon invasion. (28)
1951: KOREAN WAR. In FEAF Bomber Command's largest operation of the month, 35 B-29s, escorted by U. S. Navy fighters, dropped 300 tons of bombs on marshaling yards at Rashin in far northeastern Korea. Previously excluded from target lists because of its proximity of less than 20 miles to the Soviet border, Rashin was a major supply depot. (28)
1952: Operation HAJJI BABA. Through 29 August, 13 C-54s airlifted 3,763 Muslim pilgrims stranded in Beirut, Lebanon, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The operation helped to restore America's standing in the Middle East. (18)
1953: The USAF announced that the B-36 had become a "flying aircraft carrier." It could launch and recover F-84s Thunderjets in flight. (16) A number of B-36 bombers landed in Japan after a pioneering nonstop mass flight from the US. (24)
1958: SAC's 556th Guided Missile Squadron launched a Snark on a 6,000-mile course. (16) (24)
1959: Test pilot Frank E. Cole flew the C-130 Hercules 4,618 miles from Hickam AFB to Dobbins AFB in the longest nonstop flight for that plane to date. (3)
1961: Explorer XIII, the 50th US satellite, launched from Wallops Island to gather data on micrometeorites. Beale AFB received the first Hound Dog missile for B-52s. (6)
1965: President Johnson approved the development of a MOL to determine "what [military] man is able to do in space" for the defense of America. (12)
1966: The first class of German Air Force student pilots entered training at Sheppard AFB, Texas. (26) Tracy L. Barnes set a FAI altitude record of 28,585 feet for subclass AX-8 through AX-10 balloons (2,200 to over 4,000 cubic meters) in a Barnes Balloon at Pittsburgh. (9)
1968: The North American OV-10 Bronco, a forward air controller aircraft, began a 90-day combat evaluation in South Vietnam. (16) (26)
1969: MAC aircrews completed the first C-5 aerial refueling. (16) (26)
1983: Weapons separation testing for the B-1B began with the release of a dummy SRAM. (3)
1987: When Col (Dr.) Thomas J. Tredici retired from the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB, he became the last remaining B-17 pilot from World War II to leave active duty.
1988: A civil war in Somalia produced a large-scale requirement to medically treat people fleeing to Mogadishu. The Somali government asked for medical aid and hospital beds. To provide that relief, a 41 MAS C-141 carried a 200-bed emergency hospital weighing 22 tons to Mogadishu. (26)
1992: HURRICANE ANDREW. The storm smashed Florida with sustained 140-MPH winds. Through 28 October, 724 airlift missions moved 13,500 relief workers and 21,000 tons of supplies to the area. The hurricane destroyed Homestead AFB, forcing its temporary closure. The 482 FW returned from its post-Andrew exile to MacDill AFB on 5 March 1994 to its new role as the predominant unit at the "new" Homestead ARB, while the former active duty 31 TFW moved to Aviano AB, Italy. (24)
1993: Through 27 August, continued violence against UN forces prompted the US to send 400 Army Rangers to Somalia. AMC flew them and their equipment there on 1 KC-10 and 5 C-5 missions. (18)
1994: OPEN SKIES. Through 31 August, the US and Ukraine conducted a joint trial flight. (16)
1995: A 2d Bomb Wing B-52H crew from Barksdale AFB set six speed records over a 10,000- kilometer close-circuit course, unrefueled and with a payload. Captains Russell Mathers, Dan Manuel, Hank Jenkins, Ralph Delatour and Allen Patton, of the 96th Bomb Squadron, made the record flight, nicknamed "Long Rifle." The B-52 took-off from Edwards AFB, flew to Adak NAS, Alaska, and returned in a record time of 11 hours 23 minutes, at an average speed of 556 miles per hour. The crew later earned the 1995 Gen Curtis E. LeMay award (AFNEWS, 1996) Through 29 August, 11 C-17 Globemaster IIIs from the 315 AW and 437 AW participated in their first exercise. The aircraft moved nearly 300 tons of cargo and personnel to Kuwait. (16)
1999: At Edwards AFB, the No. 2 F-22 successfully flew at 60 degrees angle-of-attack and demonstrated post-stall flight with thrust vectoring. (3)
2002: An F-22 Raptor from the AFFTC at Edwards AFB launched an AIM-9 Sidewinder, a supersonic heat-seeking air-to-air missile. This marked the F-22 program's first supersonic missile separation. (3)
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