Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

October 27, 312: Roman Emperor Constantine the Great experienced a significant vision before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. He saw a cross of light in the sky with the inscription "In hoc signo vinces" (In this sign, you will win). Moved by this vision, Constantine had his soldiers mark their shields with the Chi-Rho, a Christian symbol. The following day, he defeated his rival Maxentius in battle, a victory many attribute to this divine intervention.


This vision was a turning point not only for Constantine but also for Christianity. Constantine's victory and subsequent conversion to Christianity led to the Edict of Milan in 313, which declared religious tolerance for Christianity within the Roman Empire. Larger image at the Vatican.


October 27, 1914: The legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales. His works include "Do not go gentle into that good night, Rage, rage against the dying of the light" and "Death shall have no dominion". In 2009, he was ranked 10th in a BBC poll to find the UK’s favourite poet.




October 27, 1941: FDR revealed existence of map showing Nazis in South America, particularly in Argentina, during Navy Day Dinner at Mayflower Hotel. "Hitler has often protested that his plans for conquest do not extend across the Atlantic Ocean. I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler’s government – by the planners of the new world order. It is a map of South America and a part of Central America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it,” ... "This map makes clear the Nazi design, not only against South America but against the United States as well", revealed US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Navy Day address to the nation, broadcast on 27 October 1941.


The map, however, was a fake. World War II revisionists (not to put too fine a point on it: those who would have preferred the Nazis to win) claim this proves that FDR was a war-mongerer, prepared to lie shamelessly in order to drag the US into war. But in this case, FDR might have been more mongered against than mongering – the map most probably was a British forgery, not an American one.

As it turned out, World War II hardly touched South America. Only after the war did it gain some notoriety as the hideout of many top-level Nazis, including Eichmann (caught by the Israelis in Argentina) and Mengele (died peacefully in Brazil).

One of the biggest remaining mysteries of Roosevelt’s counterfeit Nazi map is whether or not the president himself was aware of the ruse. After all—real or fake—the secret, unseen map worked entirely in Roosevelt’s interest.

Cull believes Roosevelt may have known, or at least suspected, that the map was a fraud. “What convinced me,” he says, “was that if you look at Roosevelt’s own handwritten edits in the first few drafts of his Navy Day speech, you can see that he crosses out a line that says ‘I have in my possession a map of undoubted authenticity’ and eventually revises it to ‘I have in my possession a secret map.’ It’s almost like he’s trying to distance himself from the smoking gun in those revisions.”

The Astounding Counterfeit Nazi Invasion Map You’ve Never Heard Of

A Map of Nazi South America (Forged by the British)

Hitler’s amazing map that turned America against the Nazis: A leading novelist’s brilliant account of how British spies in the US staged a coup that helped drag Roosevelt to war


October 27, 1945: a theatrical reenactment of the atomic bombings was staged at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles—including pyrotechnics, a 16-foot wide color wheel, projections, and nearly a hundred 800-million-candlepower lights. It was a spectacle of light to celebrate the end of World War II and Navy Day. The event, titled "Tribute to Victory", was performed for at least a hundred thousand spectators (echoing a count of those who died in Nagasaki by the end of August) and concluded with a B-29 bomber flying over the stadium to symbolize the dropping of the atomic bomb.


The Los Angeles Times described the scene writing, “a terrific detonation shook the ground, a burst of flame flashed on the field and great billows of smoke mushroomed upward in an almost too-real depiction of devastation.” Two decades later, in 1976, another B-29 was flown as part of a reenactment in Texas. This time however, the exhibit featured a mushroom cloud and the plane was flown by Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the Enola Gay. Although, due to criticism the United States issued an apology to Japan for the display, it highlighted the way in which Americans viewed the use of the atomic bomb. The Japanese gov't were absolutely furious over the atomic spectacle.


"A TRIBUTE TO VICTORY - AND YOU" LA Transit Lines, Weekly Topics, Oct 22, 1945 (1-page PDF flyer)


Atomic Legacies: The Historical Significance of the Atomic Bomb In American and Japanese Cultures
A Thesis in History by Gretchen Walsh

Great American Desert - Notes
Stephen Connolly 16mm 16’ 2007
PDF


October 27, 1838: Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, which orders all Mormons to leave the state immediately or be killed.


The order was directed to General John Bullock Clark, and it was implemented by the state militia to forcefully displace the Mormons from Missouri. In response to the order, the Mormons surrendered and subsequently sought refuge in Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1976, citing its unconstitutional nature, Missouri Governor Kit Bond formally rescinded it.

The question of whether anyone was directly killed as a result of the Extermination Order between its issuance on October 27, 1838, and the Mormon surrender on November 1, 1838, has been a subject of intense historical debate. The prevailing consensus among scholars is that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that militiamen invoked the order to justify their actions during that period.


Navy Day was established on October 27, 1922, by the Navy League of the United States, according to the Department of Defense. It was not a national holiday, but President Warren Harding paid special attention to the remembrance.


The Navy League suggested October 27th as Navy Day for two reasons: it’s the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt, who was an assistant secretary of the Navy before he became president and was known as one of the Navy’s most influential strategists.

Secondly, it is the anniversary of a 1775 report issued by a special committee of the Continental Congress favoring the purchase of merchant ships as the foundation of an American Navy.


Armed Forces Day replaced Navy Day in 1949, but Navy Day is often still observed at military bases and in local communities to recognize sailors who serve and have served. The U.S. Navy has 330,696 active duty members as of 9/11/2024, including 55,416 officers and 270,861 enlisted.

Chief of Naval Operations at the time Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt worked with the Navy League to define October 13th as the new date of Navy Day.

However, Navy Day in the United States is still largely recognized as October 27.


October 27, 1945: 47 warships including USS Missouri participated in Navy Day in New York. Invited to tour the Missouri, New Yorkers promptly mugged the battleship by taking everything not welded down. Sailors lamented that the ship took more damage in NY than it had in the Pacific. NYC has always been a rough town.




HMS Warspite ran aground on her way to be broken up in 1947, but she decided to have it her way and refused to be moved to the scrapping yard. They had to break her apart piece by piece in the water which took years. According to the contractors, it remains the largest salvage operation ever carried out in British waters. The legendary Warspite carries the most battle honours of any ship in the Royal Navy. She became a symbol of British naval power and endurance. Its storied history and dramatic engagements have been chronicled in books, documentaries, and films.

HMS Warspite (1915-1945)
Motto: Belli dura despicio ("I Despise the Hardships of War")
Nickname: Grand Old Lady


HMS Warspite, a British battleship of the Queen Elizabeth class, is considered legendary for several reasons, primarily its impressive combat record, resilience, and notable historical events during its service and survived it all.

In total, her battles in the Second World War alone included Narvik, Norway, Calabria, the Mediterranean, the Malta convoys, Matapan, Crete, Sicily, Salerno, the English Channel, Normandy and the Bay of Biscay (History UK).

She served in the Grand Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet, the Atlantic Fleet, the Home Fleet, the Eastern Fleet, and the Normandy task fleet. Like HMS King George V, she served in all oceans and all theatres. Over 8000 seamen (and the ship’s cat) served at her over the course of her life.

Maritimequest HMS Warspite Photo Gallery

This is a quite famous poem by a Warspite officer for HMS Warspite after she ran aground on the way to the scrapyard, many have said that few men have been the subject of such a fine epitaph:

THE SUBJECT

You say you have no subject
And your brushes all have dried;
But come to Marazion
At the ebbing of the tide.
And look you out to seaward,
Where my Lady battle scarred
Hugs the rock that is more welcome
Than the shameful breakers yard.

Paint her there upon the sunset
In her glory and despair,
With the diadem of victory
Still in flower in her hair.
Let her whisper as she settles
Of her blooding long ago,
In the mist than mingles Jutland
With the might of Scapa Flow.

Let her tell you, too, of Narvik
With its snowy hills, and then
Of Matapan, Salerno
And the shoals of Walcheren;
And finally of Malta,
When along the purple street
Came in trail the Roman Navy
To surrender at her feet.

Of all these honours conscious,
How could she bear to be
Delivered to the spoiler
Or severed from the sea?
So hasten then and paint her
In the last flush of her pride
On the rocks of Marazion,
At the ebbing of the tide.

— Lieutenant Commander R.A.B. Mitchell
HMS Warspite, No other battleship has a history like hers.


World War III: "Washington D.C. Under the Atomic Bomb" by Hal Boyle. From Collier's magazine, October 27, 1951.




RED October Day...

October 27, 1962: By refusing to agree to the firing of a nuclear torpedo at a US warship, Vasily Arkhipov averts nuclear war. I guess if that story is to be believed he chose wisely. He was also involved in the nuclear K-19 accident.


October 27, 1964 – Ronald Reagan delivers a speech on behalf of the Republican candidate for president, Barry Goldwater. The speech launches his political career and comes to be known as "A Time for Choosing".


Goldwater Victory Rally at Madison Square Garden sixty years ago this week. A Golden Shower for Goldwater. A real thing that happened sixty years ago this month.


Trump rally tonight at Madison Square Garden. Goldwater's rallies were as large as Trump rallies...and he still lost hugely to LBJ. Many have said the "Daisy Girl" television advert doomed Goldwater.


October 27, 1981: Cold War: The Soviet submarine S-363 designation U137 runs aground on the east coast of Sweden.


October 27, 1986: The British government, led by Margaret Thatcher, deregulated financial markets in what became known as the "Big Bang". In one fell swoop, the City of London moved to electronic trading and became a financial stock market centre to rival New York’s Wall Street.

October 27, 1988: Ronald Reagan suspends construction of the new U.S. Embassy in Moscow due to Soviet listening devices in the building structure.


October 27, 1992: United States Navy radioman Allen R. Schindler, Jr. is senselessly and brutally murdered by shipmate Terry M. Helvey for being gay, precipitating debate about gays in the military that results in the United States' "Don't ask, don't tell" military policy.


Helvey is still in prison.

I happened to be in the Navy on this day and several months earlier we had a junior sailor in our division that a few of us suspected was gay. Myself & good buddy didn't really care seeing we hung out with him in Thailand (he was too green to be left alone in such a country) and he didn't stand out as someone who was gay. However, a few other shipmates thought otherwise and reported it. After being questioned by our superiors the poor guy admitted he was in fact gay. Unfortunate for him we were way out in the middle of nowhere in the South China Sea. Fearing for his safety (word travels fast on a ship) our division officer ordered us to guard him 24/7 in quarantine until we pulled into a port. We actually felt sorry for him because he was quite intelligent when it came to electronics & computers.

About a week later we pulled into Subic Bay, Philippines where NCIS agents came aboard and took him into custody. Two weeks later he was booted out of the Navy and we never seen nor heard from him again.


Prepin for the big night coming...