Happy Birthday to The Royal Air Force. Founded 1st April 1918 by the amalgamation of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, the RAF is the world's oldest independent air force; the first air force in the world to become independent of army or navy control. The RAF's motto is Per Ardua ad Astra - "Through Struggle to the Stars."
Oh, and while we're at it, kudos to the Air Dogs of the RAF Police (RAFP), the training school for which was founded in 1945.
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FORT WALTON BEACH — The Doolittle Tokyo Raiders will end their longstanding tradition of reunions this year at the place where it all started.
The group of 80 men made famous by their April 18, 1942, bombing on Tokyo that lifted American morale during World War II is down to five living members.
“It was a very emotional decision to make,” said Tom Casey, business manager for the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders. “I think this was one of the toughest things I‘ve ever done.”
The Raiders trained at then Eglin Field with Lt. Col. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, who led the 16 Army B-25 bombers off the deck of the Navy aircraft carrier to bomb five major Japanese cities.
The four active Raiders decided last October that this year would be their final reunion. The decision was announced Friday.
via www.stripes.com
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The Rome of Romulus' day was anything but glorious. It was deliberate and rapacious in its habits, an emerging society jostling for space on the Italic stage.... The predatory and opportunistic behavior of these early Romans is ideally illustrated by the flurry of raids and counter-raids conducted against...local highlanders [of the Apennines].... This was an ugly war of ambuscades, with surprise attacks followed by equally rapid retreats, artful deceits followed by face-saving compromises--a hide-and-seek game.... Pillage was not simply the inevitable and distasteful consequence of war, but the very substance of it.
Fields, Nic. Early Roman Warrior 753-321 BC. Osprey Publishing, 2011.
(Image: Italian warrior of the late 8th, early 7th century BC, Museo della Civilta, Rome. Photographer unknown.)
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British soldiers and military dogs gathered at a British army barracks Thursday to honor a fallen hero with selfless courage, nerves of steel — and four legs.
Theo, a bomb-sniffing springer spaniel who died in Afghanistan on the day his soldier partner was killed, was posthumously honored with the Dickin Medal, Britain's highest award for bravery by animals.
Theo worked alongside Lance Cpl. Liam Tasker, searching for roadside bombs in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold.
Tasker, 26, died in a firefight with insurgents in March 2011, and Theo suffered a fatal seizure hours later. Tasker's mother, Jane Duffy, says the pair were inseparable. She's convinced Theo died of a broken heart.
"They'll be watching us, and they'll be so proud," she said. "I just wish they were here to get it themselves."
Since 1943, the Dickin Medal has recognized gallantry by animals serving with the military, police or rescue services. Some of these animal heroes:
CANINE COMMANDOS
Theo is the 28th dog to receive the medal, awarded by animal charity PDSA and named for its founder, Maria Dickin.
via news.yahoo.com
The PDSA Dickin Medal is often called the animals' Victoria Cross. To date, it has been awarded to 28 dogs (including Theo), 32 messenger pigeons of the Second World War, three horses, and one cat.Ref
Images: Lance Cpl. Liam Tasker and Theo in Iraq. Sergeant Matthew Jones and Search Dog Grace who accepted the posthumous Dickin Medal on behalf Tasker and Theo.
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The music video "Gangnam Style" is a global phenomenon and the most popular upload in the history of YouTube--449,015,599 views at the time of this writing.
BBC Radio 4 asks in a 3-minute segment of "Profile": why is "Gangnam Style" such a hit?
The short answer, provided in part by Dr. Hae-kyung Um of Liverpool University, is that the video and its creator South Korean rapper Psy are both perfect for the online era. They both have cross-over appeal to various groups and do not resist parody; in fact, they seem to invite it. Several parody videos of "Gangnam Style" appear on YouTube daily. This trend in turn heightens awareness of the original. "Gangnam Style" is a participatory artistic and pop culture phenomenon for an age of transparency, collaboration, and global connectivity through technology.
YouTube can be a delivery vehicle for global success but it doesn't guarantee it. Less remarked upon in the BBC segment is that by reflecting the Western, specifically American, influence that for years has strongly influenced South Korea (1 in 5 Koreans are Christian, one Korean Pentecostal mega-church famously has 1 million members), Psy and "Gangnam Style" are familiar enough to Western viewers to be non-threatening while still being distinctly South Korean enough to be safely and entertainingly exotic.
So, questions remain. Why is this Psy video a breakout when earlier ones are extremely similar? Do American viewers in particular perceive a tip of the cowboy hat from Psy in his rodeo-evoking moves? Is "Gangnam Style" more popular than his previous videos in non-Western countries, too? If yes, then would non-Western popularity be as strong if the video had not also caught on in the US? Who is influencing whom and how much? I presume it's not particularly popular in Sana'a and Mexico City...or is it?
I suspect that to younger Westerners the video raises curiosity about South Korea in general and perhaps K-pop music in particular, as the Summer Olympics in Seoul might have done if they had been in 2012, not 1988. The 2012 Summer Olympic games had unprecedented Internet presence--much to the benefit of Britain's brand and London tourism--including through social media engagement by spectators and athletes, whose average age was 26. Psy is a bit like a one-man South Korean Olympics, a second one for 2012: flashy, pop-oriented, and if not athletic or very young, at least slightly baby-faced and surprisingly agile and fun to watch. BBC Radio 4 even gives some understandably tempered play to optimistic speculation about Psy's ability to thaw North and South Korean tensions. What would be more Olympic than that? Global goodwill through dance. I would not, however, expect a performance at the DMZ anytime soon.
Photo: U.S. Army, Installation Management Command, Korea Region, Public Affairs Office (2008) via Wikipedia
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The Mafeking Cadet Corps was a group of boy cadets during the Siege of Mafeking (now Mahikeng) in South Africa. They are sometimes seen as forerunners of the Scouts, because they were one of Robert Baden-Powell's inspirations in creating of the Scout movement in 1907.
The siege of Mafeking took place over 217 days during the Second Boer War in 1899-1900. Robert Baden-Powell was the British colonel charged with defending the town. Because of the shortage of manpower in the town, boys were used to support the troops, carry messages, and help in the hospital. This freed up men for military duties, and kept the boys occupied.
The cadets consisted of volunteer white boys below fighting age. Their leader was the 13 year old Warner Goodyear, who became their Sergeant-Major. They were given khaki uniforms and a wide-brimmed hat which they wore with one side turned up, and a Glengarry cap, and the towns people often commented on their smartness.
One of the cadets' duties was to carry messages around the town and to outlying forts, sometimes as much as a mile away across open ground. At first they used donkeys, but as the siege ran on, food became scarce and the donkeys ended up in the kitchen. From then on, the cadets used bicycles instead.
Another important duty was to act as lookouts, mainly to warn the townspeople when the Boer siege guns were aimed and fired at different parts of the town. The town produced its own postage stamps, known as "Mafeking Blues", for postage during the siege. The first stamps depicted Baden-Powell, followed by a stamp depicting the cadet leader Warner Goodyear seated on a bicycle. The Mafeking stamps are unusual among the stamps of the British Empire, because they do not depict the monarch.
via encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com
Today marks the 113th anniversary of the start of the siege, which lasted from 13 October 1899 until 17 May 1900.
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General George Washington wished to cut off the supplies of Indians and the British, to end the devastating frontier raids, and to free up land for American settlers. In 1779, he ordered an invasion of Indian towns in Northern Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes, and the Genesee Valley in New York. Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton had orders to “lay waste” to Indian villages and fields. The London Chronicle of October 19, 1779, details the pivotal events of the “Sullivan Expedition” of 1779.
Learn more on the website about the book Reporting the Revolutionary War.
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The short 1979 Sino-Vietnamese war was the last international armed conflict entered into by China—and it didn’t even end with a border change. Compare that to the long list of American interventions prior to 1918; it’s hard to argue that young superpowers are any more inclined to be pacific simply because they’re democracies, or more likely to start wars if they’re not.
Today’s China is more woven into the international system than any previous superpower, including the U.S. In 1918, U.S. merchandise exports accounted for 8 percent of gross domestic product. For China in 2010, the same number was 26 percent—more than three times as high. As a sign of how completely integrated the country is in the global trading system, 50 percent of those exports were produced by foreign enterprises. And when it comes to its own investments overseas, China has more than $3 trillion in foreign reserves alone, most held in securities (and a good chunk in the U.S. and Europe).
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China today accounts for only about 8 percent of the world’s military expenditure—less than half the U.S.’s level in 1929 and one-fifth of America’s share today. China is a country that appears to have no pretensions to global military dominance. At the same time, the Chinese are at least as educated and prosperous as Americans were at a comparable stage of global influence—factors that should also help to moderate Chinese behavior in the long run.
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Inside the Navy's new £1billion supersub, HMS Ambush: The Hunter Killer submarine is capable of hearing a ship leaving port in New York... while sat underwater in the English channel.
One of the world's most sophisticated and powerful nuclear submarines, it carries dozens of cruise missiles capable of hitting targets 1,200 miles away. Her sonar can detect vessels moving on the other side of the ocean. Powerful nuclear reactor allows her to cruise non-stop for 25 years. HMS Ambush is so hi-tech the giant submarine doesn't even need a periscope
But just what sort of shape is the Royal Navy in?
After a series of ill-conceived cuts to Her Majesty's Armed Forces, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force (RAF) present a far less attractive option to young Brits than even just a decade ago. The Daily Mail reports that the RAF and Navy each took on only "ten 16-year old recruits in one year amid fears forces are failing to appeal to youngsters."
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