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Canada's Colt Model 1878 Double-action military revolvers

One of the 1,001 Colt Model 1878 Double-action military issue revolvers purchased hastily by the Department of Militia & Defence in Canada through the New York outfitting firm of Hartley & Graham in 1885 when the North-West Rebellion of the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan suddenly broke out. The revolvers "were nickle-plated. with 7.5" barrels, and chambered in .45 Colt." (Victorian Wars Forum)

Reading Canadian domestic military history can make for particularly New World experience, what with names like the Battle of Duck Lake and Fort Whoop-Up!

via pinterest.com

Canadians Complete the Liberation of The Netherlands - May 5, 1945

The remaining German military forces in the Netherlands capitulated to the Allies on May 5, 1945; German General Johannes Blaskowitz and Canadian General Charles Foulkes signed terms in the presence of Prince Bernhard, the prince consort of Queen Juliana and father of the current monarch Queen Beatrix. Parts of the Netherlands had been liberated earlier by American forces and additional parts by combined Anglo-Canadian forces, along with the 1st Polish Armoured Division, but it was mainly Canadian troops who completed the effort.

I can't verify it online, but I think the bespectled chap in the tank (2740x2004 enlargement) is Prince Bernhard, presumably in a liberation parade on or shortly after May 5, 1945. Bernhard was an interesting and controversial man--a daring risk taker for the cause of Dutch resistence to the Nazis in World War II, he was German born and had been a member of the Nazi Party and SA while at university in the early 1930's. He was the first chairmen of the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group and also helped found the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), but is probably best known for a rather scandal-ridden post-war life.

April 19, 1775 - "The shot heard round the world" - the American Revolution begins

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

First stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn" (1836) via en.wikipedia.org

(Photo: The Lexington Minuteman representing John Parker. The Concord Memorial and Old North Bridge can be seen on this vintage postcard here.)

History gets busy on April 19th's:

Vikings show Archbishop Ælfheah of Canterbury to his heavenly award in 1012.

Pope Saint Leo IX dies in 1054.

Francis Drake sinks the Spanish fleet in Cádiz harbor in 1587.

The Baltimore Riot occurs when federal troops march through the pro-secession city in 1861.

Toronto is destroyed by fire in 1904.

FDR takes the US off the gold standard in 1933.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins when the ghetto is invaded by the SS in 1943.

The Bay of Pigs occurs (the CIA-backed failed invasion of Cuba) 1961.

USS Iowa gun turret accident occurs in 1989.

The seige of the Branch Davidians near Waco, Texas comes to its fiery end courtesy of the ATF, FBI, Texas National Guard, and Texas Rangers (not the baseball team) in 1993.

Timothy McVeigh blows up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

It's also my friend Sharon's birthday.

Feb. 24, 1917 - The Zimmerman Telegram (Probably the sort of thing Woodrow Wilson was waiting for)

This telegram was sent from the American Embassy in London to President Woodrow Wilson during World War I, Feb. 24, 1917.

via todaysdocument.tumblr.com

The telegram came from from U.S. Ambassador to Britain Walter Page. At the time, Britain and Germany were at war. On its second page (show; click to enlarge) is the translation of a decoding of a message from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent to the President of Mexico in which was proposed an alliance between Germany and Mexico and were disclosed German plans to begin unrestricted submarine warfare.

In addition the telegram informs President Wilson how the British had intercepted and deciphered what history now refers to as simply "the Zimmermann telegram." The telegram was a significant development in the United States' decision to go to war alongside such nations as Britain and France against Germany and her allies including the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Satellite Sees a Not-Amusement-Park Chinese Carrier On The Move

DigitalGlobe Inc., a commercial satellite company, said Wednesday that it took a photograph of China’s first aircraft carrier during a sea trial in the Yellow Sea, off the Chinese coast.

via www.foxnews.com

The Varyag's tale is told well in Bloomberg Businessweek's article about how a "Floating-Casino Bid Turned Into China’s Biggest Aircraft Carrier Purchase."

 

The ex-Soviet ship was not the first used carrier China had purchased. In 1982 Beijing bought the 15,000 ton Majestic-class carrier Melbourne from Australia, which was dismantled for study and then scrapped. In 1998, the Russians sold China the much larger carrier Minsk, and, two years later, one called the Kiev. After undergoing similar scrutiny by Chinese ship designers, the Minsk and Kiev were turned into floating amusement parks.

Beijing’s military planners do not have a made-in-China bias, according to Robert S. Wells, a former U.S. Navy commander who now advises the Pentagon as a private consultant based in northern Virginia. “They are eager to imitate foreign technology,” he says, “and they don’t have any concerns about intellectual property rights.”

(Images enlarge if clicked; bottom image of the Varyag in dock is by Qilai Shen/BloombergImages)

Unflinching Portraits of Pearl Harbor Survivors | Smithsonian Magazine

Just before 8 a.m. on Sunday, December 7, 1941, sailors stationed at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu were starting to stir—dressing for church, swabbing the deck, or already sunning themselves at local beaches on their day off—when the first of two waves of Japanese fighter planes attacked the base.

At 8:10 a.m., Japanese bombers dropped a 1,760-pound torpedo on the USS Arizona, and within nine minutes the battleship sank with 1,177 men onboard. In just two hours, the death toll from the attack on the harbor climbed to about 2,400, with nearly 1,200 wounded. “A date which will live in infamy,” President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called it, before declaring war on Japan and entering the United States in World War II.

Seventy years later, only about 3,000 of the 60,000 military personnel estimated to have been at Pearl Harbor that day survive (including William Temple, above). “We are losing this ‘greatest generation’ faster than we can imagine,” says Marco Garcia, a Honolulu-based photographer who has made it his mission to photograph survivors before it is too late.

via www.smithsonianmag.com

11.11.11 Veterans Day

The only living master of a dying martial art

A former factory worker from the British Midlands may be the last living master of the centuries-old Sikh battlefield art of shastar vidya. (Photo collage: click to enlarge.) The father of four is now engaged in a full-time search for a successor.

The basis of shastar vidya, the "science of weapons" is a five-step movement: advance on the opponent, hit his flank, deflect incoming blows, take a commanding position and strike.

It was developed by Sikhs in the 17th Century as the young religion came under attack from hostile Muslim and Hindu neighbours, and has been known to a dwindling band since the British forced Sikhs to give up arms in the 19th Century.

Nidar Singh, a 44-year-old former food packer from Wolverhampton, is now thought to be the only remaining master. He has many students, but shastar vidya takes years to learn and a commitment in time and energy that doesn't suit modern lifestyles.

via www.bbc.co.uk

BBC News - Upper Gereshk: The Helmand plan meets tough reality

It's the brazenness of the Taliban that is unexpected - within 20 minutes they are throwing grenades from hidden positions just a few metres from the patrol and firing others from low-slung launchers. The grenades dance towards the landing zone as a medevac helicopter lands to pick up the casualty.

The contact lasts the best part of an hour and it is not until the helicopters overhead finally open up with their missiles that the insurgent guns lie quiet.

In the silence, all you can hear is the metallic click-clack of weapons being reloaded and the song of the swallows that flit through the air.

And it's like that every single day.

via www.bbc.co.uk

A gripping and grim telling of the situation with US and UK troops in Helmand. "Britain's 2nd Battalion, The Mercian Regiment is currently moving into the area, taking over from US marines of the 3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment."

The weekly Saturday meetings with the handful of prematurely old men with deep facial lines and hawkish features who attend are little more than convivial sit-downs with the fathers of the local Taliban. They know it, the marines know it, and the Afghans laugh among themselves, talking in circles as they often do when sitting down with foreign soldiers.

"Why is my son in jail?" asks Mohammed Sarif. Tall and with a large, round face adorned with a white beard, his eyes glisten with emotion.

"Because your son is a bad man," states the CO. "We caught him with explosives on his hand, and we have seen him laying bombs in the ground."

"My son has not done these things."

"Yes, he has, and we have seen him do it."

"Then I will kill him myself."

"He will be brought to justice."

"Give us tanks and guns and we will fight for justice in our area."

"That's good, we are recruiting for local police. Get 15 men and we will give them all the training they require."

"We cannot join the police."

"Why not?"

"The Taliban would kill us."

Impasse.

"Money is not an issue," says Captain Terrell afterwards.

"We've got plenty of money we can bring to the area but since nobody cares about projects here there's little point in spending money because it won't improve the situation.

9/11- ten years ago

 
My photos from the 11th of September, 2001.

A narrative of 9/11 by Hon. Joan Paylo, Democratic District Leader on the Upper West Side and former president of Community Free Democrats (CFD), my local Democratic club.