Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

April 15, 1755: A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, was published in London and written by Samuel Johnson. Johnson’s Dictionary is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language. Johnson took nearly 9 years to complete it.


Unlike most modern lexicographers, Johnson introduced humor or prejudice into quite a number of his definitions. A few of the best-known are:

"Excise: a hateful tax levied upon commodities and adjudged not by the common judges of property but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."

"Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries; a harmless drudge that busies himself in tracing the original and detailing the signification of words."

"Oats: a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."

On a more serious level, Johnson's work showed a heretofore unseen meticulousness.

"Time" had 20 definitions with 14 illustrations.

In spite of its shortcomings, the dictionary was far and away the best of its day. Its scope and structure were carried forward in dictionaries that followed, including Noah Webster's Webster's Dictionary in 1828 and the Oxford English Dictionary in 1884.

When it came out the book was huge, not just in scope (it contained a 42,773-long word list) but also in size: its pages were 18 inches (46 cm) tall and nearly 20 inches (50 cm) wide. Johnson himself pronounced the book "Vasta mole superbus" ("Proud in its great bulk"). One of Johnson's important innovations was to illustrate the meanings of his words by literary quotation, of which there are around 114,000. The authors most frequently cited by Johnson include Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden but also included sentences taken from the popular press of his day.

An entire scan of the first edition of Johnson's book can be found at the wonderful Johnson's Dictionary Online site - and also a nearly 8% (at the time of writing this) complete transcription.

Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1785) (6th edition, 1785 copy at link)

Blackadder Johnson's Dictionary




April 15, 1924: The Senate, by voice vote, approves an immigration bill that imposes the strictest quotas ever and bans Japanese entries. A recent protest by Tokyo’s ambassador has backfired. President Coolidge has opposed the full ban, but the bill passes by a veto-proof margin. The measure limited the number of immigrants admitted annually from any nation to 2 percent of the number of people of that nationality living in the United States in 1890.


In all of its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity. Congress revised the Act in 1952. With only minor changes, these quotas remained in place until passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.


April 15, 1941: 200 German Luftwaffe bombers attacked Belfast in Northern Ireland. Some 900 people were killed and 1,500 were injured as a result of this air raid. Outside London, this was the greatest loss of life in any single Luftwaffe raid during the Blitz. Crews from Dublin Fire Brigade and other towns in Ireland went to Belfast that night and helped fight the fires for several days.


Belfast Blitz: The Irish Firemen



April 15, 1943: USS Yorktown (CV-10) was commissioned. She would go on to serve with distinction in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. Here's a 1 hr docu of the Yorktown in this 1944 film THE FIGHTING LADY:




April 14/15, 1943: U.S. Naval Intelligence effort, codenamed "Magic" decrypted a message that revealed the travel schedule for ADM Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet. Three days later, in Operation Vengeance to kill Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, 18 P-38G Lightnings flew 600 miles and shot down the plane carrying the man who had planned the attack on Pearl Harbor.

One flight of four was designated as the "killer" flight, while the remainder, which included two spares, would climb to higher altitude to act as "top cover" for the expected reaction by Japanese fighters. The crash site and body of Yamamoto were found on 19 April, the day after the attack, by a Japanese search-and-rescue party.


The Credit controversy on who exactly killed Yamamoto is beyond belief. It has never been settled nor confirmed which pilot did the kill shot and apparently the court battle ended after the remaining pilot died in 2001.

The American public did not learn the full story of the operation, including that it was based on broken codes, until September 10, 1945 after the conclusion of the war, when many papers published an Associated Press account.

They did it. On April 18, 1943, 16 U.S. Army Air Forces fighter pilots from Guadalcanal flew more than 400 miles to ambush Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto as he flew to Balalae airfield in the Solomon Islands. They sent the Japanese Combined Fleet's commander in chief to a fiery grave in the jungles of Bougainville. The United States had exacted revenge against the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack and one of the Imperial Navy's highest-ranking officers--but at what cost?

Behind the scenes, President Franklin D. Roosevelt reacted with glee, writing a mock letter of condolence to Yamamoto's widow that circulated around the White House but was never sent:

Dear Widow Yamamoto:

Time is a great leveler and somehow I never expected to see the old boy at the White House anyway. Sorry I can't attend the funeral because I approve of it.

Hoping he is where we know he ain't.

Very sincerely yours,

/s/Franklin D. Roosevelt

Ironically, the success of the mission, aptly named Operation Vengeance, threatened to expose the most important secret of the Pacific War: the U.S. Navy's ability to read the Japanese navy's top-secret JN-25 operational code. If the Japanese suspected a broken code had led to Yamamoto's death, they would drastically overhaul all their military codes and the United States would lose its priceless strategic advantage. As nervous commanders waited to see if there would be a day of reckoning, America's own servicemen would prove to be the gravest threat to this crucial secret.

...

On May 11, 1943, Lodge filed his story with the censors for transmission back home. Although he did not mention the breaking of Japanese codes, he wrote that American "intelligence had trailed Yamamoto for five days" and that American pilots had specifically targeted him. The story included Lanphier's description of the mission and quoted Strother as saying that the U.S. military had known Yamamoto's itinerary.

If Lodge's story had seen the light of day, the JN-25 code might have quickly become a thing of the past. Not only did his story show that the United States knew of Yamamoto's death, which Japan had not announced, but also that the Americans had known Yamamoto's location. No Australian coastwatcher would have known his precise schedule; a compromised JN-25 code was the only explanation.

The censors could not believe what they read. They quickly passed the story up the chain of command. Nimitz immediately ordered Halsey to "secure and seal in safe" Lodge's notes and story. He told Halsey to "initiate immediate corrective measures and take disciplinary action as warranted." Lanphier, Barber, and Strother returned from leave to find a summons to meet Halsey on his flagship. When they arrived, an irate Halsey refused to return their salutes and simply stared at them. When he finally erupted, the bombastic Halsey outdid himself. As Barber recalled:

  He started in on a tirade of profanity the like of
  which I had never heard before. He accused us of
  everything he could think of from being traitors to
  our country to being so stupid that we had no right
  to wear the American uniform. He said we were
  horrible examples of pilots of the Army Air Force,
  that we should be court-martialed, reduced to privates,
  and jailed for talking to Lodge about the
  Yamamoto mission.

Halsey's bark was worse than his bite; he simply reduced their Medal of Honor recommendations to the second-highest valor award, Navy Crosses.

...

Even though the war was over, the navy was still upset by the story. Its officers were debriefing a high-level Japanese intelligence officer who had provided them with valuable information. The naval officers planned to interview other captured officers, too, but feared the code-breaking revelation might shame the Japanese officer into drastic action. "[W]e do not want him or any of our other promising prospects to commit suicide until after next week when we expect to have milked them dry," radioed a navy officer based in Yokohama.

An exasperated navy department sent back a memorable reply:

  Your lineal position on the list of those who are
  embarrassed by the Yamamoto story is five thousand
  six hundred ninety two. All of the people over
  whose dead bodies the story was going to be published
  have been buried. All possible schemes to
  localize the damage have been considered but
  none appears workable. Suggest that only course
  for you is to deny knowledge of the story and say
  you do not understand how such a fantastic tale
  could have been invented. This might keep your
  friend happy until suicide time next week, which is
  about all that can be expected.

The question remains: why didn't the Japanese follow the clues and realize that their JN-25 code had been compromised? In retrospect, it is incomprehensible. Otis Cary, an American navy officer who debriefed Japanese naval officers after the war, wrote that while the Japanese suspected Yamamoto had been ambushed, they "never seemed to have considered seriously that we might be breaking their secret codes." It is almost impossible to believe that if the shoe was on the other foot, American or British intelligence would not have figured out what had happened. It remains one of the great and enduring puzzles of the Pacific War.

For more in depth, see: Have you heard? The greatest threat to America's key strategic advantage in the Pacific was Americans themselves



April 15, 1952: the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress took its maiden flight. Alvin Melvin "Tex" Johnston as the test pilot.




April 15, 1969: a North Korean MiG-21 fighter shot down a U.S. Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star of Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron One (VQ-1)  reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Sea of Japan. All 31 men on board were killed (30 sailors and 1 Marine), making the incident the largest single loss of U.S. aircrew during the Cold War era.


This Day in Aviation

In the end, no nukes and nothing was done other than the usual diplomatic fightin words shot at the North Korean regime.



April 15, 1993: Best selling author Leslie Charteris died, age 85. He's best known as the author of a series of books featuring Simon Templar ("The Saint"), which became a successful TV series from 1962-1969 with Roger Moore playing Templar.




April 15, 1999: Singer Elton John and fashionista Donatella Versace attend party hosted by Sean ("Puffy" or "P-Diddy") Combs in Miami.


Getty Images


I never had such patches when I was sailing around. Course, Carrier sailors are a different breed.


Chowdah Hill is Captain Chris Hill of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69).


Going all out with the threats today.