Posted on 01/25/2019 7:26:41 AM PST by fugazi
Today's post is in honor of Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda, who died on this day in 2004 when his boat capsized during a patrol on the Tigris River in Iraq. Bunda, 29, of Bremer, Wash. was assigned to 2d Battalion of the 3rd Infantry Regiment and was one of four U.S. soldiers joining the Iraqi police during a river patrol. During the search for Bunda and the Iraqi policemen -- the other three Americans made it to shore safely -- an OH-58D Kiowa helicopter hit a power line and crashed into the river, killing 1st Lt. Adam G. Mooney and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Patrick D. Dorff.
1787: Former Continental Army captain Daniel Shays leads a group of 2,000 American rebels on a raid against the Springfield (Mass.) armory, hoping to obtain rifles. 1,200 militia meet Shays' force, turning the attackers away by firing grapeshot into their ranks and killing four. Shays is tried and sentenced to be hanged, but the veteran of the Boston, Bunker Hill, Lexington, and Saratoga battles - who was wounded during the war and served five years without pay - is pardoned and given a pension instead.
1856: Marines and seamen from the sloop-of-war USS Decatur land at Seattle to protect settlers from an Indian attack. The Battle of Seattle lasted seven hours and the Indians suffered severe casualties, while only two settlers died.
1939: In a basement of New York City's Columbia University, scientists split the uranium atom for the first time. This newly discovered fission reaction will be harnessed and turned into atomic weapons in six years.
1946: (Featured image) In the skies over Florida's Pinecastle Army Airfield (now the site of Orlando International Airport), Bell Aircraft Corporation's first XS-1 supersonic research plane, 46-062, cuts loose from its B-29 mothership for the craft's
(Excerpt) Read more at victoryinstitute.net ...
Ping list
I find that 1995 claim a little difficult to believe.
Interesting reading.....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/20/usaf-atomic-bomb-north-carolina-1961
https://www.businessinsider.com/when-nuclear-war-almost-happened-2018-4
Johnny Cash went all politically correct with his Ballad of Ira Hayes.
A lot of Johnny Cash was politically correct when you read the lyrics.
04 January 1955.
There’s a notification system that is supposed to be used when a country launches a rocket. As I remember, Norway did its part, but it didn’t get passed down by Russia properly.
But there is a HUGE LESSON here - perhaps the only thing that kept Yeltsin from ordering a strike on us was that we were on good terms with Russia back then.
Something to think about when, just for political gain, you’re beating up on a country that can blow your brains out with their pinky.
Me too. There are a few others that I know of.
There is a lot of expertise and historical knowledge on FR. I'm hoping no one will provide inappropriate details.
I’m away from my sources and my memory is hazy, but I remember an incident in the 1960s (I think it was 1968) when border tensions between the Soviet Union and China were at a fever pitch.
The Soviets asked the USA what would be the response if the Soviets were to launch a strike on China.
The US responded that if the USSR would do so we would launch a strike on the Soviet Union. The Soviets took a while before they backed down.
That is the closest, to my knowledge, the USA has ever come to a nuclear war.
***1995 - the closest we ever came to nuclear war***
Nonsense. Those who lived through the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis know what being near nuclear war really means. My sister-in-law, in Los Angeles, said people there were in a total panic to leave the city. Wrecks everywhere, grocery stores emptied as people just grabbed anything they could find and fled.
I still get nervous every Christmas eve when NORAD reports something coming over the DEW Line in Canada, as when they reported it in 1962, we thought it might be Russian missiles.
Then they showed a silly cheap photo of Santa Claus. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or mad because of the scare.
UI remember the TV show about Ira Hayes with Lee Marvin staring as Ira. He died drunk drowning in an almost empty irrigation ditch.
The movie THE OUTSIDER with Tony Curtis shows him freezing to death drunk in the hills. No irrigation ditch.
Castro asking Kruschev to authorize a first strike against the U.S. during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Kruschev concluded Castro was crazy and couldn’t be trusted with nuclear missiles. So, it was easy for him (Kuschev) to withdraw them.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fidel-castro-nikita-khrushchev-letter-death-2016-11
Mr. Hayes was a real hero, who happened to be an Indian, unlike a certain stolen valor POS liar in the fake news recently.
***..tensions between the Soviet Union and China***
I remember that. Chinese border guards would line up facing away from the Russian border guards, drop their pants and moon the Russians.
That ceased when the Russians started pulling out large photos of Mao, so the Chinese were mooning Mao.
What wasn't know then was that the Soviets had nuclear tipped artillery they were authorized to use if we invaded.
This was another too close Nuclear incident between Russia and the USA:
Below is a scary reality during the Cuban Missile Crisis that only a few knew about during the Cuban Missile Crisis:
The Time a Single Soviet Officer Averted a Nuclear War!
A single man refused to bow to pressure and saved us all from Armageddon~!
In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviets began moving nuclear missiles into Cuba. When the Americans found out, it triggered a diplomatic and military crisis on an unprecedented scale.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world has ever come to full-scale nuclear war, and for a brief moment, only one man stood between the world and nuclear annihilation.
His name was Vasili Arkhipov, and an excellently animated video tells his story.
The story starts a year before, when the U.S. tried to stage a coup in Cuba to oust the newly elected Fidel Castro. The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failure and an embarrassment for the American government.
In response, Cuba asked the now emboldened Soviets for assistance. The U.S.S.R. began sending nuclear missiles to Cuba. When the U.S. found out, it set up a blockade. The Soviets viewed this as an act of aggression, and diplomatic ties between the two countries began to break down. Nuclear war was looking more and more likely every day.
In this environment of heightened tensions, a group of U.S. Navy ships located a Soviet submarine in the waters off Cuba. The Navy ships dropped a depth charge to force the sub to the surface. The sub, the Soviet B-59, was too deep to receive any radio communications, and the crew suspected that war had already broken out.
The captain, Valentin Savitsky, decided to launch the sub’s nuclear torpedo toward the U.S. ships. Launching the torpedo required the unanimous vote of the three senior officers: the captain, the ship’s political officer Ivan Maslennikov, and the first officer, Vasili Arkhipov.
Both Captain Savitsky and Maslennikov voted to launch the torpedo, but Arkhipov did not. An intense argument broke out among the three men, but Arkhipov managed to convince Savitsky to surface.
This action likely averted a nuclear war. In the end, Arkhipov’s actions allowed the U.S. to negotiate peace with the Soviets and end the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Source: Ted-Ed via Digg
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a23074/cuban-missile-crisis-video
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov
Vasili Arkhipov
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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For a World War II Hero of the Soviet Union, see Vasili Sergeyevich Arkhipov.
Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov
Vasili Arkhipov.jpg
Native name
Born 30 January 1926
Zvorkovo, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Died 19 August 1998 (aged 72)
Zheleznodorozhny, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Allegiance Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Service/branch Soviet Navy
Years of service 1945–1980s
Rank RAF N F7VicAdm since 2010par.svg Vice Admiral< Died in 1998.
Battles/wars
World War II
Cuban Missile Crisis
Awards
Order of the Red Banner
Order of the Red Star
Future of Life Award
Err...we nuked Japan twice. Doesn't count?
Can’t get much closer than that.
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