Quote:The fleet's welcome began before daylight on the morning of Thursday, August 20th with site-seers coming out on steamers as far as 30 miles to meet the fleet in the dark. By the time they reached the headlands of Botany Bay, they had an escort of many excursion vessels. Off Coogee Bay they Could see thousands upon thousands of people on the bluffs. From there to the harbor, on the high cliffs, rocks and headlands, it was simply a mass of humans.

The Great White Fleet Visits Sydney, Australia

Quote:On August 24, 33 years ago, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Act on State Independence and the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. The Ukrainian edition of Radio Liberty was one of the first to inform this news.

On December 1, 1991, a referendum was held in Ukraine to confirm the Independence Act. The bulletin had only one question “Do you confirm the Act of Declaration of Independence of Ukraine” and more than 90% of Ukrainians answered yes. Ukraine has gained independence in a peaceful, legal way.

The first state sovereignty of Ukraine was recognized by Poland. Why was the neighbor so dependent on being first? Who was the final decision for? Was Poland afraid of the Kremlin’s reaction? How Poland recognized Ukrainian independence of Radio Liberty was told by direct participants in this historical process.

Ukraine’s declaration of independence for Poland was no surprise, then Prime Minister Jan Krzysztof Belecki says. The politician recalls the secret meeting initiated by the Ukrainian side.

The Secret Meeting

“In the first days of January 1991, we met in Davos at the economic forum with the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Kravchuk and this meeting, the meeting of our delegation was not planned. One evening, our deputy minister came to me and said that the Ukrainian delegation wants to meet. And we had such a secret meeting. During the conversation, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Leonid Kravchuk asked us if we are ready to recognize the independence of Ukraine. Then, I admit, I was a little surprised, because nothing like this has happened yet, and then there was a conversation about what conditions, what will be the calendar of events,” Beletsky recalls.

Already in the summer, on August 24, 1991, when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted the Act on State Independence, Poland was ready and only waited for the results of the referendum to be the first in the world to recognize Ukraine's state sovereignty.

“Why is it important to be first? Because it was in line with the way people think from Solidarity, because our first governments of independent Poland since 1989 left the Solidarity movement and I think we are still proud of them,” says former Polish Prime Minister.

Jan Belecki recalls how in 1981 at the Solidarity Congress, a message was adopted to the working people in Eastern Europe, which said that all people of labor in Eastern Europe have the right to freedom and fundamental rights.

According to the former prime minister, it was then announced in the Soviet Union that Solidarity is “a revisionist organization that wants to destabilize the situation throughout Eastern Europe.”

“We were very proud, and then this message to the people of Eastern Europe became the main slogan of the activities of the first governments of Solidarity. So as soon as this chain reaction began to declare freedom and independence by the countries of Eastern Europe, we were very sensitive to this that our neighbor, a great neighbor, which is Ukraine and not a simple neighbor with whom we historically had many misunderstandings and even dramas to see that the people of Solidarity with hope and optimism welcome the expansion of the zone of freedom in Eastern Europe, expansion to such a great country.

Due to the time difference, the Poles were several hours ahead of Canada with a diplomatic note, which had already "steppermed five".

“Because we managed to get ahead of Canadians for a few hours, we still remember this. The then Prime Minister Malruni remembered that there is Poland and Belecki,” adds the former Polish Prime Minister.

According to Beletsy, Poland was no longer afraid of the reaction of the Kremlin:

“We were waiting for this moment with great hope, as well as with great determination that no matter what the Kremlin says, no matter how much Gorbachev has been grunting, we are firmly set.”

...

“Despite the Soviet propaganda, which constantly mentioned Lviv, trying to quarrel us, we had no territorial claims. To this day, Russian propaganda is trying to use territorial resynthetics, they, of course, fail. For several decades of our relations, we have never been a problem and that Poland shows its openness to Ukraine recognizes its independence,” Zhochovsky said.

How Poland was the first in the world to recognize Ukrainian independence

Quote:This page is ordinarily reserved for a date tie-in - an interesting tidbit of historic information which sometimes is even actually connected to the topic being examined, and sometimes just calls out to me that it wants to be commemorated on the specific date of the uploading of this column. This time the event I've chosen has limited historic significance, but is interesting just the same. About 120 web sources tell us that on this date, in 1146,

    A conference of European leaders outlawed the crossbow, thinking to end wars for all time.

Needless to say, that perhaps well intentioned attempt wasn't successful. Wars are still with us. Also still with us is a tendency to keep the information flowing, regardless of its accuracy.

I'm not questioning the accuracy of the claim that on August 30, 1146 the crossbow was outlawed. For all I know, that may be true. But I don't know, and none of the perhaps 120 web pages that relate this information seem to know either. The vast majority of them simply copy and distribute the information, and none of them offer a source, either printed or electronic.

Who were these European leaders? Were they kings, princes, tribal chiefs? Did they represent different countries, different clans, different tribes? Where did they meet? For how long? Did they sign a written agreement, and if so, where can we find a copy of it? When dealing with an event that took place 850 years ago it's understandable that the information available about it is rather sparse, but still, one would expect a bit more detail.

A couple of the sites that note the date try and do a bit more. One of these links to a picture and to a short explanation of what a crossbow is - a commendable practice. Another, a school site, uses the date as a jumping off point to suggest to teachers what might be done with the information:

    Make a class list of the wars that were fought since then!

though there are probably numerous better catalysts for such an activity, and of course judging by the number of wars fought since then, the class activity sounds more like busy work in order to give the teacher a rest for perhaps a week.

So? I'll readily admit that the event has a certain ring to it. I'd even like it to be true. Sadly, even if it is, as a one-shot non-commital sentence stuck somewhere in an innocuous web site (or a hundred of them) it's rather useless information. If anyone wants to use the date, go right ahead, but please don't say you found it here.

Over and over and over again

Quote:Senior Policy Director John Erath wrote an op-ed in Geopolitical Monitor about arms control throughout history.

Around 1096, the Pope issued a decree banning crossbows as murderous and un-Christian weapons.  Although a later Pope clarified that it was still allowable to kill heathens with crossbows, all Christian nations were supposed to refrain from the use of such devices in warfare or suffer eternal damnation.  Unsurprisingly, the Pope’s attempt at medieval arms control failed, and Swiss action hero William Tell became a legend. In 12th century Europe, the primary threat to security came from armored warriors, and a crossbow could penetrate the armor of the time.  If one wanted to secure one’s castle from being stormed by armored enemies, a few crossbows on the walls would have been an effective deterrent.

Op-ed: From Crossbows to Nuclear Weapons: Arms Control in an Imperfect World

Quote:Genoese crossbowmen were some of the most sought-after mercenaries in Europe for much of the Middle Ages. They earned a reputation as fierce, reliable and effective warriors by defending their home republic and by serving in many of Europe’s armies. When their emblem, the banner of St. George, appeared on the horizon, many brave soldiers trembled and quite a few commanders changed their strategy at the last moment. Their most famous battle as well as their greatest defeat was the Battle of Crécy in 1346.

Quote:THE BATTLE OF SYDNEY: Sabres, Meteors, Sea Furies And Two Blokes With A Bren Gun Battle A Runaway

On the morning of the 30th of August, Anthony Thrower of Lavinia Street, Granville was out for a pleasure flight when his Auster Archer decided to make a break for freedom. What followed was a madcap three hour chase involving four jet fighters, two Hawker Sea Furies and two blokes with a Bren Gun.

Given that this incident pre-dated the more famous Battle Of Palmdale by a year, I thought it was interesting to compare how more conventionally armed aircraft fared against a slow, but determined piston-engined intruder. I hope you find it entertaining. I have to admit that as a Brit, I enjoyed poking a little fun at my Australian friends... hopefully they can take it in the spirit it's intended.

Quote:Washington, D.C., Nov. 3, 2000 — The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard. Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas.

Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the "plane crash" was a simulated one.

The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room.

On Oct. 24, there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident to name just some of the scenarios that were practiced to better prepare local agencies for real incidents.


To conduct the exercise, emergency personnel hold radios that are used to rush help to the proper places, while toy trucks representing rescue equipment are pushed around the exercise table.

Cards are then passed out to the various players designating the number of casualties and where they should be sent in a given scenario.

To conduct the exercise, a medic reports to Army nurse Maj. Lorie Brown a list of 28 casualties so far. Brown then contacts her superior on the radio, Col. James Geiling, a doctor in the command room across the hall.

Geiling approves Brown's request for helicopters to evacuate the wounded. A policeman in the room recommends not moving bodies and Abbott, playing the role of referee, nods his head in agreement.

"If you have to move dead bodies to get to live bodies, that's okay," Abbott says as the situation unfolds.

Geiling remarked on the importance of such exercises.

"The most important thing is who are the players?" Geiling said. "And what is their modus operandi?"

Brown thought the exercise was excellent preparation for any potential disasters.

"This is important so that we're better prepared," Brown said. "This is to work out the bugs. Hopefully it will never happen, but this way we're prepared."

An Army medic found the practice realistic.

"You get to see the people that we'll be dealing with and to think about the scenarios and what you would do," Sgt. Kelly Brown said. "It's a real good scenario and one that could happen easily."

A major player in the exercise was the Arlington Fire Department.

"Our role is fire and rescue," Battalion Chief R.W. Cornwell said. "We get to see how each other operates and the roles and responsibilities of each. You have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here."

Each participant was required to fill out an evaluation form after the training exercise.

"We go over scenarios that are germane to the Pentagon," Jake Burrell of the Pentagon Emergency Management Team said. 'You play the way you practice. We want people to go back to their organizations and look at their S.O.P. (standard operating procedure) and see how they responded to any of the incidents."

Burrell has coordinated these exercises for four years and he remarked that his team gets better each year.

Abbott, in his after action critique, reminded the participants that the actual disaster is only one-fifth of the incident and that the whole emergency would run for seven to 20 days and might involve as many as 17 agencies.

"The emergency to a certain extent is the easiest part," Abbott said. He reminded the group of the personal side of a disaster. "Families wanting to come to the crash site for closure."

In this particular crash there would have been 341 victims.

Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies

Quote:Child Evacuees in the Second World War: Operation Pied Piper

Photographs of the evacuation of British children in 1939, excitedly waving from packed trains or with name tags round their necks, have become some of the most emblematic images of the Second World War. The children’s forced move represented the nature of total war, a conflict that involved even the youngest members of British society.

But the origins of childhood evacuation in fact lie much further back. It was in the early twentieth century that governments and populations across Europe first began to speculate on the dangers of aerial bombardment. H.G. Wells’ 1907 novel 'War in the Air' predicted the growing threat of attack from the air and governments worried how cities and urban crowds in particular would respond. The First World War saw some of these fears realised: although often forgotten in popular memory, British cities were bombed by zeppelins throughout the 1914-1918 conflict, resulting in the deaths of 1,239 civilians, half of whom were women and children.

Quote:On this day in history, September 1, 1777, McCulloch's Leap goes down as one of the greatest escapes of the American Revolution, when Major Samuel McCulloch jumps over a 300 foot cliff from attacking Indians to safety.



Fort Henry had guarded the small village of Wheeling from Indian attack, in what was then part of Virginia, since 1774. The Ohio Valley tribes, aligned with the British, began a new campaign against the frontier settlements in the summer of 1777. Fort Henry was fortified and prepared, having received intelligence that it would be a target. On August 31, a party of 200 Mingo, Wyandot and Shawnee attacked the village and the fort. Most of the 25 or so families from Wheeling got to the fort safely.

Several messengers were able to get away and inform other nearby forts that Fort Henry was under attack. Captain Van Swearingen soon arrived from nearby Cross Creek with forty men on horses. They successfully fought their way to the fort, swelling its number of defenders. Other reinforcements arrived from Fort Shepherd and Fort Holliday.


On September 1, Major Samuel McCulloch arrived from Fort Van Metre with another 40 men. As they raced to the gate of the fort, the Indians attacked in full force. As some of the men were forced into hand-to-hand combat, McCulloch waited till the last to make sure they were all inside the fort. With the Indians getting very near the open doors, the settlers inside were finally forced to close the gates, leaving McCulloch alone on the outside.



McCulloch took off in the direction of nearby Wheeling Hill being pursued by the Indians. He was not fired upon because the Indians wanted to take him alive. Every Indian knew McCulloch, who was a notorious and feared Indian fighter on the frontier.


As McCulloch galloped along the crest of the hill, a 300 foot precipice on one side and a band of Indians chasing him from behind, he was confronted with another group of Indians to his front, who were just arriving to help with the siege of the fort. Now surrounded and with no way of escape, McCulloch knew his capture would mean the most excruciating torture. He made an instant decision to go over the edge of the precipice. Dying on the way down would be easier than being tortured at the hands of the Indians.

McCulloch held the reigns with his left hand and his gun in his right hand and spurred his horse over the edge. It is said that they did not hit ground until half way down the hill, which is nearly vertical. The rest of the way, they slid down the almost 90 degree hill, being pummeled with branches and stones until they hit bottom, but McCulloch's horse never lost his footing.

At the bottom of the hill lie Wheeling Creek. The stunned Indians watched McCulloch cross the creek and ride away in amazement. The Indians continued the siege of Fort Henry only for another day or so. With the reinforcements that had already arrived and those that McCulloch would likely bring back with him, continuing was futile and they gave up the mission. McCulloch's Leap has gone down as one of the bravest escapes of the American Revolution and, indeed, in all of the history of warfare.

https://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com/mccullochs-leap.html#gallery[pageGallery]/0/

Quote:This technicality appears not to have crossed the mind of Cornelius Nepos (110 BCE – circa 25 BCE), the Roman biographer who many years after the battle penned De Viris Illustribus, a compendium recording the lives of “illustrious men” and an important source of information on this ancient maritime punch-up (see https://bit.ly/3kekoMx). In his chapter on Hannibal, Nepos informs that a few days before the battle, the now-Bithynian general, knowing his forces inferior, ordered his men to collect as many poisonous serpents as possible to be put into a large number of clay pots, enough to easily defend themselves against the enemy fleet (425 vessels strong!).

Having located Eumenes’ ship, Hannibal’s flotilla attacked, and with the aid of their vast number of serpents, pulled off the impossible. Eumenes fled, and when [the Pergamenians] saw their ships [i]filled with serpents, and, startled at the strangeness of the occurrence, knew not what to avoid first, they put about their ships, and retreated to their camp upon the coast[/i].


But is there really any way Hannibal could have collected a “vast number” of poisonous snakes? Certainly, it would have been easier if ancient western Turkey was crawling with them, like on the Ilha da Queimada Grande, a 0.43-km2 island 34 km off the coast of Itanhaém, Brazil, where some 2000–4000 venomous golden lanceheads (Bothrops insularis), mostly squashed into a 0.25-km2 patch of forest, make a living preying on visiting migratory birds. And certainly, where there are a lot of venomous snakes, a lot of dedicated people – given adequate time – might catch a bundle: every year thousands of rattlesnakes are captured across the southern US to eventually feature in ecologically destructive “rattlesnake round-up” fairs. But there are no rattlesnakes or golden lanceheads in Turkey, and according to Nepos, Hannibal’s men had little time to get their ophidian stash together.

“It would have been impossible to collect that many poisonous snakes”, says Emin Bozkurt, a herpetologist at Çankiri Karatekin University (Çankiri, Turkey). “I did once see six Ottoman vipers (Montivipera xanthina) together, but that hardly allows for collecting ‘vast numbers’.”

But what if they collected any old snake? After all, Hannibal’s warriors were probably not herpetologists. And rag-tag snake bombs could likely have been just as disconcerting as true viper ordnance to the sailors on the receiving end, who were probably not herpetologists either. And what if these creatures got together in large conglomerations?

In Canada and the northern US, for example, thousands of nonvenomous red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis) famously huddle in dens throughout the winter months, providing an early spring mass-mating spectacle when they wake up from hibernation. Unfortunately, there are no red-sided garter snakes in Turkey – but there are dice snakes (Natrix tessellata; Figure 1), which locally can reach very high densities. “This harmless snake could have been collected in the hundreds and perhaps the thousands if it was spring”, says Konrad Mebert (Global Biology; Birr, Switzerland).

“I once collected up to 140 of these in 4 hours with 20 inexperienced pupils at a lake in Switzerland. Similarly high densities exist in fish-rich lakes [across to] Central Asia. In Bithynia, high densities were likely around the [Sea of Marmara] and its adjacent wetlands. So if Hannibal had 30–50 men on the job in a habitat where this species was particularly dense, he could have got a lot of dice snakes together in a week.”

Bithynian snake bombs

Quote:The first recorded mushroom trip in Britain took place in London’s Green Park on October 3, 1799. Like many such experiences before and since, it was accidental. A man identified in the subsequent medical report as “J. S.” was in the habit of gathering small mushrooms from the park on autumn mornings and cooking them up into a breakfast broth for his wife and young family. But this particular morning, an hour after they had finished it, everything began to turn very strange. J. S. noticed black spots and odd flashes of colour interrupting his vision; he became disorientated and had difficulty in standing and moving around. His family were complaining of stomach cramps and cold, numb extremities. The notion of poisonous toadstools leapt to his mind, and he staggered out into the streets to seek help, but within a hundred yards he had forgotten where he was going, or why, and was found wandering in a confused state.

By chance a physician named Everard Brande was passing through this part of town, and he was summoned to treat J. S. and his family. The scene he witnessed was so unusual that he wrote it up at length and published it in The Medical and Physical Journal a few months later.1 The family’s symptoms were rising and falling in giddy waves, their pupils dilated, their pulses fluttering, and their breathing laboured, periodically returning to normal before accelerating into another crisis. All were fixated on the fear that they were dying except for the youngest, the eight-year-old son named as “Edward S.”, whose symptoms were the strangest of all. He had eaten a large portion of the mushrooms and was “attacked with fits of immoderate laughter” which his parents’ threats could not subdue. He seemed to have been transported into another world, from which he would only return under duress to speak nonsense: “when roused and interrogated as to it, he answered indifferently, yes or no, as he did to every other question, evidently without any relation to what was asked”.

Dr Brande diagnosed the family’s condition as the “deleterious effects of a very common species of agaric [mushroom], not hitherto suspected to be poisonous”. Today, we can be more specific: this was intoxication by liberty caps (Psilocybe semilanceata), the “magic mushrooms” that grow plentifully across the hills, moors, commons, golf courses, and playing fields of Britain every autumn.

Fungi, Folklore, and Fairyland

Quote:Mr Whoppit, Campbell's teddy bear mascot, was found among the floating debris and the pilot's helmet was recovered. Royal Navy divers made efforts to find and recover the body but, although the wreck of K7 was found, they called off the search, after two weeks, without locating his body. Campbell's body was finally located in 2001.

The remains of Campbell's body were located just over two months later and recovered from the lake on 28 May 2001, still wearing his blue nylon overalls. On the night before his death, while playing cards he had drawn the queen and the ace of spades. Reflecting upon the fact that Mary, Queen of Scots had drawn the same two cards the night before she was beheaded, he told his mechanics, who were playing cards with him, that he had a fearful premonition that he was going to "get the chop". It was not possible to determine the cause of Campbell's death, though a consultant engineer giving evidence to the inquest said that the force of the impact could have caused him to be decapitated. Wiki

Quote:Two U.S. researchers say they have identified the probable deployment site in Russia of the 9M730 Burevestnik, a new nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile touted by President Vladimir Putin as "invincible."

Putin has said the weapon - dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO - has an almost unlimited range and can evade U.S. missile defenses. But some Western experts dispute his claims and the Burevestnik's strategic value, saying it will not add capabilities that Moscow does not already have and risks a radiation-spewing mishap.

Using images taken on July 26 by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite firm, the two researchers identified a construction project abutting a nuclear warhead storage facility known by two names - Vologda-20 and Chebsara - as the new missile's potential deployment site. The facility is 295 miles (475 km) north of Moscow.

Reuters is the first to report this development.

Decker Eveleth, an analyst with the CNA research and analysis organization, found the satellite imagery and identified what he assessed are nine horizontal launch pads under construction. They are located in three groups inside high berms to shield them from attack or to prevent an accidental blast in one from detonating missiles in the others, he said.

The U.S. State Department, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center declined to comment.

The identification of the missile's probable launch site suggests that Russia is proceeding with its deployment after a series of tests in recent years marred by problems, said Eveleth and the second researcher, Jeffery Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Lewis agreed with Eveleth's assessment after reviewing the imagery at his request. The imagery "suggests something very unique, very different. And obviously, we know that Russia is developing this nuclear-powered missile," he said.

Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who also studied the Vologda imagery at Eveleth's request, said that it appears to show launch pads and other features "possibly" related to Burevestnik. But he said he could not make a definitive assessment because Moscow does not typically place missile launchers next to nuclear warhead storage.

Eveleth, Lewis, Kristensen and three other experts said Moscow's normal practice has been stockpiling nuclear payloads for land-based missiles far from launch sites - except for those on its deployed Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) force.

But deploying the Burevestnik at Vologda would allow the Russian military to stockpile the nuclear-armed missiles in its bunkers, making them available to launch quickly, said Lewis and Eveleth.

U.S. researchers find probable launch site of Russia's new nuclear-powered missile

Quote:Watson's "Whizzers"

In 1944 intelligence experts at Wright Field had developed lists of advanced aviation equipment they wanted to examine. Watson and his crew, nicknamed "Watson's Whizzers," comprised of pilots, engineers and maintenance men, used these "Black Lists" to collect aircraft. Watson organized his Whizzers into two sections. One collected jet aircraft and the other procured piston engine aircraft and nonflyable jet and rocket equipment.

After the war, the Whizzers added Luftwaffe test pilots to their team. One was Hauptman Heinz Braur. On May 8, 1945, Braur flew 70 women, children and wounded troops to Munich-Riem airport. After he landed, Braur was approached by one of Watson's men who gave him the choice of either going to a prison camp or flying with the Whizzers. Braur thought flying more preferable. Three Messerschmitt employees also joined the Whizzers: Karl Baur, the Chief Test Pilot of Experimental Aircraft, test pilot Ludwig "Willie" Huffman, and engineering superintendent Gerhard Coulis. Test pilot Herman Kersting joined later. When the Whizzers located nine Me 262 jet aircraft at Lechfeld airfield, these German test pilots had the expertise to fly them.

National Museum of the US Air Force