Today is the birthday, in 1819, of Abner Doubleday, Civil War general and reputed inventor of Baseball. He fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter, the opening battle of the war, and had a pivotal role in the early fighting at the Battle of Gettysburg. Gettysburg was his finest hour, but his relief by Maj. Gen. George G. Meade caused lasting enmity between the two men. In San Francisco, after the war, he obtained a patent on the cable car railway that still runs there.
Although he never made such a claim, Doubleday was declared to have invented the game of baseball in 1908, fifteen years after his death, by the Mills Commission. This claim has been thoroughly debunked by baseball historians. Despite the lack of solid evidence linking Doubleday to the origins of baseball, Cooperstown, New York, became the new home of what is today the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in 1937.
Gen. Abner Doubleday, U.S.A.
Reflecting Pool contractor looks like a movie villain…
The Korean War began on this day in 1950, when the North Korea’s Korean People’s Army (KPA) launched an invasion of the south. In the absence of the Soviet Union’s representative, the UN Security Council denounced the attack and called on member nations to provide military assistance to repel the invasion.
Seoul was captured by the KPA on 28 June, and by early August, the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) and its allies were nearly defeated, holding onto only the small Pusan Perimeter in the peninsula’s southeast. On 15 September, UN forces landed at Inchon near Seoul, cutting off KPA troops and supply lines. UN forces broke out from the perimeter on 18 September, recaptured Seoul, and invaded North Korea in October, capturing Pyongyang and advancing towards the Yalu River (border with China).
On 19 October, the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (PVA) crossed the Yalu and entered the war on the side of the North. UN forces retreated from North Korea in December, following the PVA’s first and second offensive. Communist forces captured Seoul again in January 1951 before losing it to a UN counter-offensive two months later. After an abortive Chinese spring offensive, UN forces retook territory roughly up to the 38th parallel. Armistice negotiations began in July 1951, but dragged on as the fighting became a war of attrition and the North suffered devastating damage from UN bombing, destroying virtually all of North Korea’s major cities.
Combat ended on 27 July 1953 with the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement, which allowed the exchange of prisoners and created a 4-kilometre wide (2.5 mile) Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the frontline, with a Joint Security Area at Panmunjom.
The conflict caused around one million military deaths and an estimated 1.5 million to 3 million civilian deaths.
With her brother on her back a war weary Korean girl tiredly trudges by a stalled M-46 tank
SIGNZZz
Today is the birthday, in 1943, of Carly Simon, US singer, songwriter, (1973 UK No.3 and US No.1 single ‘You’re So Vain’, 1974 US No.5 single with James Taylor ‘Mockingbird’). In 2015, after keeping quiet for more than 40 years, Carly Simon admitted that ‘You’re So Vain’ was about Warren Beatty, but only one verse of it. Simon said the other verses were about two other men. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WM_R-6AKHE
Today marks the beginning of the Great Siege of Gibraltar in 1779. It was an unsuccessful attempt by Spain and France to capture Gibraltar from Britain during the American Revolutionary War. It was the largest battle in the war by number of combatants.
On 16 June 1779, Spain entered the war on the side of France with the primary war aim of capturing Gibraltar from the British. The vulnerable garrison of Gibraltar, commanded by George Eliott, was besieged from June 1779 to February 1783. Initially, the siege was carried out solely by Spanish forces under Martín Álvarez de Sotomayor. The siege proved to be a failure because two British relief convoys entered unmolested, the first under Admiral George Rodney in 1780 and the second under Admiral George Darby in 1781, despite the presence of the Spanish Navy.
Following the Spanish failure to defeat the garrison or prevent the arrival of relief convoys, the besiegers were reinforced by French forces under Louis de Crillon, who took over command in early 1782. After a lull in the siege, during which the Franco-Spanish besiegers gathered more guns, ships and troops, a “Grand Assault” was launched on 13 September 1782. This involved huge numbers—60,000 attackers, 49 ships of the line and 10 specially designed and newly invented floating batteries—against 5,000 British defenders. The assault proved to be a disastrous and humiliating failure, resulting in heavy losses for the French and Spanish. This was the largest action fought during the war in terms of numbers.
It was a factor in ending the American Revolutionary War the Peace of Paris negotiations were reliant on news from the siege, particularly at its climax.
Gibraltar Relieved By Sir George Rodney by Dominic Serres, 1782. Admiral George Rodney’s relief fleet at Gibraltar with captured Spanish battleships from the Battle of Cape St Vincent in January 1780
This means you, Manuel!
Nothing to add here…
Today is the birthday, in 1949, of John Illsley, English musician, best known as bass guitarist of the rock band Dire Straits who had the 1985 US No.1 single ‘Money For Nothing’ the 1986 UK No.2 single ‘Walk Of Life’ and the 1985 world wide No.1 album Brothers In Arms. Illsley owns a local pub, the ‘East End Arms’, between Lymington and Beaulieu, which has been listed by critics as one of the “Fifty Best Pubs Around Britain”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd9TlGDZGkI
Today is the birthday, in 1889, of Verena Winifred Holmes. She was an English mechanical engineer and multi-field inventor, the first woman member elected to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (1924) and the Institution of Locomotive Engineers (1931), and was a strong supporter of women in engineering. She was one of the early members of the Women’s Engineering Society, and its president in 1931. She was the first practicing engineer to serve as president of the society.
She worked work for the industrial engine manufacturer Ruston and Hornsby while taking technical courses. In 1922, Holmes graduated from Loughborough Engineering College with a BSc(Eng) degree. Her technical specialities included marine and locomotive engines, diesel and internal combustion engines. In 1925, Holmes set up her own consulting company. Holmes patented a number of inventions, including the Holmes and Wingfield pneumo-thorax apparatus for treating patients with tuberculosis, a surgeon’s headlamp, a poppet valve for steam locomotives, and rotary valves for internal combustion engines. She held patents for twelve inventions for medical devices as well as engine components.
During World War II Holmes worked on naval weaponry and in 1940 became adviser to Ernest Bevin, the minister of labour, on the training of munition workers. She was appointed headquarters technical officer with the Ministry of Labour. She was influential in setting up the Women’s Technical Services Register during the Second World War, which included a training course for women munitions workers to enable them to apply for roles such as junior draughtsmen and laboratory assistants.
Verena Holmes’ birthday of 23 June coincides with International Women in Engineering Day and she is commemorated as part of that celebration.
Today is the birthday, in 1867, of Gisela Januszewska. was an Austrian physician. Having earned her degree in Switzerland, she briefly worked in Germany before becoming the first female physician in the ethnically Serbian town of Banja Luka in Bosnia Herzegovina within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
She was one of five children of Leopold Rosenfeld, an estate manager in the Slavonian town of Grubišno Polje. She received a degree in medicine from the University of Zurich in 1898. In March 1899, she was appointed Amtsärztin, a public health official, in the Bosnian town of Banja Luka, becoming its first female physician. During her career in Banja Luka, Januszewska was one of few physicians who strove to ensure that Bosnian Muslim women had proper access to healthcare.
She performed minor surgeries and gained fame treating patients with smallpox, typhoid, typhus and syphilis. Widowed in 1916, she volunteered to enter the Austrian military medical corps. Januszewska received several medals for her services, including German Red Cross Decoration and the Austrian Order of the Civil Merit. After the war, in 1919, she opened her own practice in Graz. She was widely respected for her social responsibility: not only did she treat the underprivileged for free, she also financially supported some of them. She was the second Austrian physician to be awarded the title Medizinalrat, an award for outstanding contributions to medicine.
When Germany took over Austria she became subject to their racial policies, Her Graz apartment was confiscated by the Nazis in 1940, and she was forced to move to Vienna, from where she was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. She died there on 2 March 1943, aged 76.
Januszewska as a physician in Graz
A very tired roof….
Tutering and wrighting…
Today is the birthday, in 1953, of American singer and songwriter Cyndi Lauper, who had the 1984 US No.1 single ‘Time After Time’, and the UK & US No.2 single Girls Just Want to Have Fun, (first recorded in 1979 by American musician Robert Hazard). The song received Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQY7BusJNU
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