Today in History

[GHT]

On this day in 1960, Eddie Cochran, the man behind “Summertime Blues” and “C’mon Everybody,” was killed, when the taxi carrying him from a show in Bristol, England, crashed en route to the airport in London, where he was to catch a flight back home to the United States. His tour-mate, Gene Vincent recovered from his injuries, but was left with a permanent limp.

In one of those weird twists of fate, the young police officer attending the scene, was a wannabe pop singer, who a few years later, left the force and achieved his dream. He was of course: Dave Dee.

 

[GHT]

On this day in 1775, The American Revolution Begins:

At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

 

[GHT]

At 11 p.m. on this day in 1778, Commander John Paul Jones leads a small detachment of two boats from his ship, the USS Ranger, to raid the shallow port at Whitehaven, England, where, by his own account, 400 British merchant ships are anchored. Jones was hoping to reach the port at midnight, when ebb tide would leave the shops at their most vulnerable.

Commander Jones, one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland on July 6, 1747. He was apprenticed to a merchant at the age of 13 and soon went to sea from Whitehaven, the very port he returned to attack on this day in 1778. In Virginia at the onset of the revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775.

 

[DNO]

One hundred years ago today, the Germans unleashed a cloud of chlorine gas, for the first time on the Western Front, on French positions near Ypres. Confronted by this horror, the French units fell apart and withdrew. Canadian troops of the 1st Canadian Division, which was on the French right, rushed to try to fill the gap. They too had been on the receiving end of the gas but, holding handkerchiefs and shell dressings over their mouths and noses, they tried to stem the German advance.

An excerpt from the the 10th Battalion’s war diary for 22 April 1915:


"4.45 pm
…hear bombardment from north east and see shells breaking, also cloud of peculiar color (grayish, yellowish, greenish) darker near the ground and lighter in color near top.

6.00 pm
…the road was blocked with masses of French troops proceeding toward Ypres in great distress. There were also masses crossing the fields in a south westerly direction, many having thrown away anything that could impede their progress. "

It took them most of the evening but the 10th eventually formed up with the 16th Battalion and, together, participated in the first Canadian offensive action of the First World War…the midnight counterattack on Kitchener’s Wood.

Four days and 6,000 casualties later, the Canadian troops emerged from the Second Battle of Ypres with a considerable reputation.

And so was unleashed a new kind of hell in an already hellish war.

 

[GHT]

Jones was hoping to reach the port at midnight, when ebb tide would leave the shops at their most vulnerable.

Jones was obviously a shop lifter. What a typo!

 

[GHT]

On this day, in 1968, at twelve noon going in and one pm coming out, at St. Anthony's Church in the London district of Forest Gate, my wife and I made our wedding vows. Forty seven years together, I'm reliably informed that if I had killed her I would have been out in fourteen. And a friend whose been through three husbands told us that 47 years together deserves a medal. I was trying to think of an appropriate spoof medal to put into her card.

 

[DNO]

George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty Four, was first published on this date, June 8th, in 1949. In an odd coincidence, on June 4th I found a 1949 first edition of this classic at a local thrift store.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty Four, was first published on this date, June 8th, in 1949. In an odd coincidence, on June 4th I found a 1949 first edition of this classic at a local thrift store.

Doubleplusgood.

 

[Fading Fast]

George Orwell's book, Nineteen Eighty Four, was first published on this date, June 8th, in 1949. In an odd coincidence, on June 4th I found a 1949 first edition of this classic at a local thrift store.

Fantastic, as a modest book collector, I am a tiny bit jealous, but really happy for you. That was one of those high school reads that truly impacted me - the way they hope books like that will.

 

[DNO]

The Globe and Mail has a regular feature called "Moments in Time" and today it featured the publication of Nineteen Eighty Four, otherwise I wouldn't have known. The copy I found is the 1949 Canadian first edition in reasonable condition though lacking a dust cover. I was pretty amazed when I found it and was happy to cough up the required $2! Lucky.

The thrift store in which I found the book is a regular haunt for pickers and small time dealers...but they never look at the books. I've found some exceptional signed books there.

 

[Fading Fast]

The thrift store in which I found the book is a regular haunt for pickers and small time dealers...but they never look at the books. I've found some exceptional signed books there.

It's funny how that happens in some of these smaller or tucked away book stores. I've never found a gem in a NYC used bookstore, but in Maine or up-state NY, I've come across some decent finds. Nothing outrageous, but some good value or hard-to-find copies at reasonable prices.

 

[DNO]

It's funny how that happens in some of these smaller or tucked away book stores. I've never found a gem in a NYC used bookstore, but in Maine or up-state NY, I've come across some decent finds. Nothing outrageous, but some good value or hard-to-find copies at reasonable prices.

I find the same thing in Toronto. The used book stores tend to know what they have. All of my best finds have been in thrift stores. I wouldn't really call myself a book collector but I can't resist a signed book or a classic modern first edition.

 

[DNO]

June 16th, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go into space.

 

[Fading Fast]

June 16th, 1963: Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go into space.

And watching all those old "Honeymooners" episodes growing up, I would have bet it would have been Alice Kramden.

 

[DNO]

And watching all those old "Honeymooners" episodes growing up, I would have bet it would have been Alice Kramden.

Nah....that was 'right to the moon' if I remember right. Tereshkova just went into orbit!

 

[Renault]

[video]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VvIZ92EQ074[/video]

200 years today!

Tonight I salute the "Old Guard"'with a nice Cote du Rhone!
Vive l'Garde Imperiale!

 

[DNO]

After being missing for 5 weeks and having been given up for dead, Aimee Semple McPherson emerged from the Mexican desert on this day in 1926.

 

[2jakes]

Amelia Earhart Goes Missing ~ July 2nd 1937

Amelia Earhart and her navigator Frederick Noonan go missing during their attempt to fly around the world between
New Guinea, and Howland Island, an island in the center of the Pacific Ocean.
No trace of the aircraft including Earhart or Noonan was ever found.

 

[MissJilliss2Thrill]

The execution of Thomas Cromwell, ordered by King Henry VIII


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cromwell

 

[MissJilliss2Thrill]

In 1958 president Eisenhower signs the National Aeronautics and Space Act, essentially creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Aeronautics_and_Space_Act

I could get addicted to this thread