Maritime History

[GordMay]

August 5

1962 ~ 1st quasar* located by radio
3C273 was the first quasar ever found, as well as the brightest and closest.
* "quasi-stellar radio source"
More: http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/l...e/quasars.html

1962 ~ Actress Marilyn Monroe is found dead in her home in Los Angeles

1945 ~ Atom Bomb dropped on Hiroshima (Aug 6th in Japan)

1914 ~ U.S. & Nicaragua sign Bryan-Chamorro treaty
The U.S. acquires the right (for $3 million) to build a canal across Nicaraguan territory, lease the Great and Little Corn Islands, and establish a naval base in the Gulf of Fonseca. The Bryan-Chamorro Treaty gave the United States exclusive rights to build an interoceanic canal across Nicaragua. Because the United States had already built the Panama Canal, however, the terms of the Chamorro-Bryan Treaty served the primary purpose of securing United States interests against potential foreign countries (ie: Germany or Japan) building another canal in Central America. The treaty also transformed Nicaragua into a (near) United States protectorate.

1864 Battle of Mobile Bay
Union Admiral David Farragut leads his flotilla through the Confederate defenses at Mobile, Alabama, to seal one of the last major Southern ports.

1815 ~ Edward J Eyre born (British explorer/governor of Jamaica)

1583 ~ Gilbert claims Newfoundland (1st English colony in North America)
More: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1...s-gilbert.html

[GordMay]

2005 ~ Russian Priz AS-28 mini-submarine is rescued from deep in the Pacific Ocean.
All seven on board, which included six Russian navy seamen and one representative of the company that made the sub, survived. The Priz incident occurred just five years after the Kursk, a Russian nuclear submarine, sank, killing all 118 people on board.

1964 ~ Congress passes Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

1960 ~ Ivory Coast, Cote d'Ivoore, gains independence from France

1947 ~ Thor Heyerdahl’s “Kon Tiki” raft grounds on reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands.

1942 ~ U.S. forces invade Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands
Operation “Watchtower” was the first battle in the American amphibious campaign to liberate the Pacific from Japanese occupation.

1657 ~ English Admiral Robert Blake dies

[GordMay]

August 8 ~ Not a good date for would-be despots.

1974 ~ President Richard M Nixon announces he'll resign his office 12PM Aug 9
1897 ~ Antonio Canovas del Castillo (PM of Spain) assasinated (69)
1815 ~ Napoleon Bonaparte sails for exile on St. Helena

[GordMay]

August 9

1979 ~ Brighton gets 1st British nude beach

1945 ~ US drops 2nd atomic bomb "Fat Man" on Nagasaki, Japan

1842 ~ Canada - U.S. border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
A Treaty between the United States of America and Her Britannic Majesty Relative to Boundaries, Suppression of the Slave-Trade, and Extradition of Criminals, Concluded at Washington, August 9, 1842. With the exception of the Oregon line*, most of the frontier between Canada and the United States was defined by this agreement.
The treaty settled the Northeast Boundary Dispute, which had caused serious conflicts, such as the Aroostook War. Over 7,000 sq mi (18,100 sq km) of the disputed area, including the Aroostook valley, were given to the United States, and several waterways, including the St. Johns River, were opened to free navigation by both countries. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty also settled the disputed position of the U.S.-Canada border in the Great Lakes region. Other clauses provided for cooperation in the suppression of the slave trade and for mutual extradition of criminals.
* US expansionists sought to fix the Oregon border at 54̊ 40? N. In 1846, the Western border was finally resolved at 49̊ N.
Text of the Treaty: http://www.bartleby.com/43/30.html

[Knottygirlz]

Originally Posted by GordMay

August 9

1842 ~ Canada - U.S. border defined by Webster-Ashburton Treaty
.... several waterways, including the St. Johns River, were opened to free navigation by both countries. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty also settled the disputed position of the U.S.-Canada border in the Great Lakes region.

I have often wondered how they drew the line along the St Lawrence River. It is so crooked and jagged at times you would swear they hiccupped when the pencil was was drawing the line....

Lori, Rick and Shadow

[GordMay]

August 10

1994 ~ Last British troops leave Hong Kong (been there since Sept 1841)
1945 ~ Japan announces willingness to surrender to Allies
1790 ~ Robert Gray's “Columbia Rediviva”, completes 1st American Flagged circumnavigation
More: http://theodore.l.durgan.home.att.net/gray.htm
1519 ~ Magellan's 5 ship set sail to circumnavigate Earth

[GordMay]

August 11

1909 ~ Liner "Arapahoe" is 1st ship to use SOS distress call
The ship’s wireless operator, T. D. Haubner, radioed for help when his ship lost its screw propeller near the ‘Graveyard of the Atlantic’, at Diamond Shoals off Cape Hatteras, NC.. The call was heard by the United Wireless station at Hatteras. A few months later, the SS Arapahoe received an "SOS" distress call from the SS Iroquois. Radio Officer Haubner therefore has the distinction of being involved in the first two incidents of the use of "SOS" in America, the first as the sender and the second as the receiver. The U.S. did not officially adopt "SOS" until 1912, being slow to adopt international wireless standards.
The first use of wireless in communicating the need for assistance came in March of 1899. The East Goodwin Lightship, marking the southeastern English coast, was rammed in a fog in the early morning hours by the SS R. F. Matthews. A distress call was transmitted to a shore station at South Foreland and help was dispatched.

1772 ~ Explosive eruption blows 4,000' off Papandayan Java, kills 3,000
More: http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volc...va/papandayan/

[GordMay]

August 12

2000 ~ Russian sub “Kursk” sinks with 118 onboard
More: http://www.aeronautics.ru/nws002/kursk001.htm
-&-
http://kursk.strana.ru/english/

1985 ~ Japanese Boeing 747SR {JAL Flt 123) crashes (520-524 die)
The aircraft suffered an explosive decompression while climbing through 23,000 feet. The failure of the rear pressure bulkhead caused a portion of the vertical stabilizer to be blown away, rupturing all four main hydraulic fluid lines. Controlling the aircraft solely by engine thrust, the crew was attempting to return to Tokyo when the aircraft clipped one mountain ridge, flew across a valley, and impacted a second mountain approximately 400 feet from the summit. This accident remains the deadliest single-airplane accident in aviation history.

1981 ~ IBM's first PC is completed, introduces PC-DOS version 1.0

1898 ~ Armistice ends the Spanish-American War
The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty.

1898 ~ Hawaii formally annexed to U.S.

1876 ~ “Madeline” (U.S.) beats “Countess Dufferin” (Canada) in 4th America's Cup

1851 ~ U.S. schooner “America” beats British yacht “Aurora” in 1st ‘America's Cup’

0003 ~ Venus-Jupiter in conjunction (Star of Bethlehem?)

[GordMay]

August 13

1962 ~ Take me to Cuba
Two Americans, David Healy and Leonard Oeth, skyjack a charter plane heading to Miami, Florida, and force its pilot to fly to Cuba. Apparently unwelcome, they were later returned to the United States and jailed.

1946 ~ H. G. (Herbert George) Wells dies
(novelist, journalist, sociologist, and historian)

1926 ~ Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro born

1898 ~ U.S. forces under George Dewey capture Manila during Spanish-American war
More: http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...h_american.htm

1521 ~ Aztec capital falls to Cortés
After a three-month siege, Spanish forces under Hernán Cortés capture Tenochtitlán (Mexico City), the capital of the Aztec empire. Cortés' men leveled the city and captured Cuauhtemoc (Moctezuma's successor), the Aztec emperor.
More: http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/trave...pconquest.html

[GordMay]

August 14

1980 ~ Solidarity - Lech Walesa & 17,000 workers go on strike in Lenin Shipyard at Gdansk, Poland

1973 ~ U.S. ends secret bombing* of Cambodia
(*”Operation Menu”)
More: http://faculty.headroyce.org/~us2001...eyj/paper.html

1947 ~ India & Pakistan granted independence within British Commonwealth

1915 ~ British transport “Royal Edward” sank by German U boat (1000 die)

1901 ~ SS “Islander” hits iceberg near Alaska and sinks (70 die)

1782 ~ Suriname forbids selling slave mothers without their babies

1559 ~ Spanish explorer de Luna lands in Pensacola Bay, Florida

1498 ~ Columbus lands at the mouth of the Orinoco River in Venezuela

1281 ~ Kublai Khan’s invading fleet* destroyed in typhoon** near Takashima Island, Japan
*The largest armada the world had ever seen (4,400 ships & 70,000 men), not matched until the Allies’ WW II “D-Day” invasion at Normandy, France.
**To the Japanese, the heaven-sent storm and the manner in which the Mongols had been repulsed reconfirmed their belief in their own divine origins. From that deadly August afternoon in 1281 down to the present time, the "divine wind" that destroyed the Mongol invasions of Japan has been known by its more popular name, “kamikaze”.
More:
“Anchoring The Kamikaze Legend” ~ By Bryn Nelson
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/n...?coll=ny-healt
“Weather and the Military” ~ by Samson Brand http://www.datasync.com/~bouchard/rich/brand2.html

[GordMay]

August 15
1994 ~ Terrorist, Carlos the Jackal, captured in Khartoum Sudan
1914 ~ Panama Canal opens
1620 ~ “Mayflower” sets sail from Southampton with 102 Pilgrims

[GordMay]

August 16

1984 ~ Andrea Doria's safe opened
More: http://www.andreadoria.org/Artifacts/Artifacts.htm

1969 ~ Woodstock opens

1934 ~ U.S. explorer William Beebe descends 3,028' (923 m) in Bathysphere

1896 ~ Klondike Goldstrike (Bonanza Creek, Alaska)

1870 ~ Fred Goldsmith demonstrates curve ball isn't an optical illusion
More: http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF6/613.html

1748 ~ "Geldermalsen" sails to East-Indies
Gord is NOT aboard this one, either
More: http://www.vocshipwrecks.nl/home_voy...dermalsen.html

[GordMay]

August 17

1978 ~ ”Double Eagle II” conquers Atlantic
More: http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/aero...uble_eagle.htm
and
http://www.eballoon.org/flights/atlantic-conquered.html

1969 ~ Hurricane Camille, kills 256 in Mississipi and Louisiana

1942 ~ Task Force 17 departs Pearl Harbor
More: http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Coral/TF17.html

1807 ~ Robert Fulton's steamboat Clermont begins 1st trip up Hudson River
More: http://www.kiac-usa.com/clermont.html

[GordMay]

August 19

1942 ~ 1st American offensive in Pacific in WW2, Guadalcanal, Solomon Is
and: ~ 4,000 Canadian and British soldiers killed raiding Dieppe, France

1099 ~ Crusaders meet Saracens in Battle of Ascalon

[GordMay]

August 20

1994 ~ Ferry sinks at Chandpur Bangladesh (300-350 die)

1852 ~ Steamer "Atlantic" sinks (Lake Erie) with 250 aboard

1785 ~ Oliver Hazard Perry born
Immediately following his victory at the Battle of Lake Erie (War of 1812), Perry penned the famous words, 'We have met the enemy and they are ours..." in his report to General William Henry Harrison.