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USMC Major General Vandergrift landed his 11,000 Marines of the 1st Marine Division on the island of Guadalcanal. The next 6 months would show the world the mettle of the fighting men of our Marine Corp.

Hall of Fame hurler Nolan Ryan left a lasting impression on the state of Texas and on Major League Baseball with an illustrious 27-year career. His 5,714 strikeouts, 324 wins and seven no-hitters cemented his legacy as one of the greats. But it was 24 years ago Friday that the Ryan Express immortalized himself -- and it didn’t have much to do with his pitching that day. On August 4, 1993, the 46-year-old Ryan drilled Chicago White Sox third baseman Robin Ventura in the elbow with a fastball. Ventura then made a decision he undoubtedly regrets to this day. He...

News of singer Lisa Marie Presley’s death spread quickly earlier this week causing concern among fans across the world. However the August 2017 report has now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Thankfully, the Elvis Presley's daughter is alive and well.

A Ukrainian Flanker crashed during a display at Sknyliv airfield, in Ukraine. The accident killed 77 people and injured 543. The deadliest air show accident in history occurred on Jul. 27, 2002, at Sknyliv airfield near Lviv, Ukraine, when a Ukrainian Air Force Su-27 Flanker crashed during its display routine. The two pilots, Volodymyr Toponar and Yuriy Yegorov, ejected safely but as a consequence of the crash 77 people died and 545 were injured, 100 of whom were hospitalised. Several videos show the incident from different viewpoints. The Flanker can be seen performing a sort of split-S at low altitude,...

Exactly half a century ago - July 29th 1967 - this song hit Number One on the Billboard Hot One Hundred. This essay is adapted from Mark's book A Song For The Season: It was 50 years ago today-ish that Sgt Pepper was going on about how it was 20 years ago today. That's to say, the "Summer of Love" is half a century old: It's longer ago today than the summer of flappers and charlestons and bootleg gin was back in 1967. But, boomers being the most self-absorbed generation in history, we're going to be living with boomer pop...

National Moon Day is observed annually on July 20 and commemorates the day man first walked on the moon in 1969. NASA reported the moon landing as being “…the single greatest technological achievement of all time.” On July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed the first humans, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on the moon. Armstrong stepped first onto the lunar surface, six hours after landing and spent two and a half hours outside the spacecraft. Aldrin spent slightly less time but together they collected 47.5 pounds of lunar material to bring back to Earth. Michael Collins piloted Apollo 11...

July 14 is Bastille Day, the French national holiday that celebrates the beginning of republican democracy in France and the end of tyrannical rule. Many media outlets in America reported on the festivities around the celebration in France: But none did it … better … than Andrea Mitchell.

On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress, assembled in Philadelphia, formally adopts Richard Henry Lee’s resolution for independence from Great Britain. The vote is unanimous, with only New York abstaining. The resolution had originally been presented to Congress on June 7, but it soon became clear that New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland and South Carolina were as yet unwilling to declare independence, though they would likely be ready to vote in favor of a break with England in due course. Thus, Congress agreed to delay the vote on Lees Resolution until July 1. In the intervening...

Ten years ago today Apple shipped a wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone, and a breakthrough internet device. But it wasn't three products. It was one product. And we got it, Steve. We got iPhone. On June 28, 2007, Apple shipped the original iPhone. People had been waiting outside for days in lineups that ran for blocks. Anticipation was off the charts. Competitors were nervously dismissing it as a over-reaching and over-priced. Media was calling it the Jesus Phone. Steve Jobs had put sneaker to stage only six months earlier to introduce it. The most incredible keynote...

This was not how it was supposed to be. The most hated man in American media has dealt a serious and potentially knockout blow to the career of the woman who thought she was all set to take him on and proceed unimpeded on the fast track to maybe becoming the next Oprah. The battle pitting the two well-known personalities commenced two weeks ago when Megyn Kelly, the golden girl of 21st century TV infotainment, started pursuing controversial talk show host and Infowars founder Alex Jones as the next big interview “get” for her new prime time NBC television network...

Timeline of the D-Day landings of 6th June 1944 hour by hour as events unfolded on the day

SAINTE-MERE-EGLISE, France, June 5, 2017 — "There are moments in a nation's history when its future course is decided by a chosen few who walked bravely into the valley of the shadow of death," Army Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti said during a wreath-laying ceremony at the Iron Mike Memorial here yesterday. "In such moments, young men and women pledge their lives so that their nation can live," said NATO's supreme allied commander for Europe and the commander of U.S. European Command. U.S. Army paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division and the 82nd Airborne Division; French,...

WOW...thanks to Bill Clinton, 'yours truly' joined the FReeRepublic forum 19 years ago today and has never looked back. Many, many thanks to JimRob and John!!

For many, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is The Beatles at their best. When it came out on 1 June 1967 it was unlike anything that had come before it. Experimental and immersive, it pushed musical boundaries. Half a century on, it remains one of the most influential albums of all time, as Beatles author Steve Turner explains: "It was artistically aspirational at a time when most of their contemporaries were still playing beat music of some kind or another. "They had these great ambitions. Paul was starting to go to the theatre, George was listening to Indian music,...

The disaster struck without the least warning. The ship had angled its blunt nose toward the mooring mast, the spider-like landing lines had been snaked down and the ground crew had grasped the ropes from the nose, when the explosion roared out, scattering ground crew and spectators like frightened sheep. The passengers, who were waving gayly a minute before from the observation windows, were so stunned they could not describe late what happened. Some jumped to the sandy landing field along with members of the crew. Others seemed to have been pitched from the careening skyliner as it made its...

Today, we remember and honor the memory of those who suffered during the Meds Yeghern, one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century.  Beginning in 1915, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.  I join the Armenian community in America and around the world in mourning the loss of innocent lives and the suffering endured by so many. As we reflect on this dark chapter of human history, we also recognize the resilience of the Armenian people.  Many built new lives in the United...

1861: Following the capture of Fort Sumter by Confederate forces, Pres. Abraham Lincoln issues a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers (at the time, the Army consisted of just 16,000 men) to quell the rebellion. Four years to the day later, Lincoln would die from John Wilkes Booth mortally wounding him with a gunshot to the back of the head at Ford’s Theater. 1947: Former platoon leader in the 761st “Black Panther” Tank Battalion Jackie Robinson breaks the “color barrier,” becoming the first black baseball player in the Major Leagues. 1961: B-26B Invader bombers, painted by the CIA to resemble Cuban...

“Where are the planes?!” kept crackling over U.S. Navy radios exactly 56 years ago this week. The U.S. Naval armada (22 ships including the Carrier Essex loaded with deadly Skyhawk jets.) was sitting 16 miles off the southern Cuban coast near an inlet known as Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs). The question — bellowed between blasts from a Soviet artillery and tank barrage landing around him — came from commander, Jose San Roman.“Send planes or we can’t last!” San Roman kept pleading to the very fleet that escorted his men to the beachhead (and sat much closer to them...

The significance of Vimy has shifted through the decades as new generations ponder the sacrifice There were many people in chilly, war-weary London who wanted to shake Canadian prime minister Robert Borden's hand on April 9, 1917. The first accounts of "Canada's victorious day" on Vimy Ridge filtered through the imperial war cabinet within hours of the battle and well-wishers sought out the prime minister to offer congratulations. His diary bursts with pride. "I hope that this victory is only the augury of further triumphs," he wrote. Events may have moved quickly in those day, but news moved slowly. At...

About 50 women rioted in Salisbury, N.C. over the scarcity of flour and salt to feed their families. They blamed local businesses for speculating on flour and other necessities. By the end of the day they acquired 23 barrels of flour and 2 sacks of salt.