Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“‘Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —
Only this, and nothing more.”

The Raven (1884) by Edgar Allan Poe, born January 19, 1809.




January 19, 1915: 3 German Zeppelins bombed the towns of Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn. These were the 1st German Zeppelin raids on Britain in the First World War. The Zeppelin, a motor-driven rigid airship, was developed by the German inventor Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin.

Zeppelins Over Norfolk

Airship L4 (commanded by Kapitänleutnant Count Magnus von Platen-Hallermund) continued a westerly course and headed over Cromer before dropping a bomb on the seaside resort of Sheringham. This bomb, which fell on Jordan’s Yard, Wyndham Street (now Whitehall Yard) at 8.30pm, was the first to be dropped by air on British soil. Having failed to explode, a local resident picked it up and put it in a bucket.

A few minutes later, a second bomb was dropped in Sheringham; although this did explode, it caused no damage.

Reaction in the Press

Reporting the incident the following morning,  The Times speculated:

It was plain that the source of the disturbance was aircraft, though precisely of what kind could only be conjectured. The opinion is generally held that it was a dirigible, for what appeared to be searchlights were seen at a great altitude. Others, however, say that the lights were not the beams of a searchlight, but the flash of something resembling a magnesium flare.

—The Times Wednesday, 20 January 1915; p.8

Further news was published about the raid in the following days; here the reporter describes one of the unexploded bombs:

The upper part, for all the world like the "cone" to be found in every art classroom, is made of thin metal and packed with a resinous substance which, after experiment on a very small scale in an ordinary firegrate, I found to be highly inflammable.

—The Times Thursday, 21 January 1915; p.9

The attacks by airships continued for most of the war. A total of 52 raids by Zeppelin and other airships were carried out on the UK, although by 1917 these attacks were becoming less effective. Only six raids took place in 1917, and only four in 1918, the last taking place in August 1918.

Although these airship raids may have caused localised panic, the effect on Britain’s war industries was negligible. While they may have slightly interrupted war production in isolated areas, the most significant outcome of these raids was to cause a great deal of public anger.

Jan 19, 1917: The Silvertown explosion occurred in Silvertown in West Ham, Essex on the river Thames (now part of the London Borough of Newham). The blast occurred at a munitions factory that was manufacturing explosives for Britain's First World War military effort. Approximately 50 long tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT) exploded, killing 73 people and injuring 400 more, as well as causing substantial damage in the local area. This was not the first, last, largest, or the most deadly explosion at a munitions facility in Britain during the war.


The Silvertown explosion came while Britain was fighting the First World War, and many jumped to blame their enemy. London had already been attacked by air, with German zeppelins dropping bombs between 1915 and 1917. The truth was harder to take – this was a tragic and preventable accident.

More info at London Museum


Jan 19, 1937: the millionaire Howard Hughes flew his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J. in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, breaking the record he set a year earlier by about two hours. He averaged 332 miles an hour during the 2,490-mile journey.


This Day In Aviation


January 19, 1940: You Nazty Spy!, a short film starring comedy trio The Three Stooges became the 1st Hollywood film to satirise Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. It helped publicize the Nazi threat in a period when the USA was still neutral in the Second World War. Moe becomes Dictator, Curly is a Field Marshal and Larry becomes Minister of propaganda. After successfully preventing a female spy from committing mayhem, the boys are run out of office by a mob and eaten by lions.




January 19, 1959: Gort the 7' 7" giant aka Lock Martin, Joseph Lockard Martin Jr. died. You'd best heed Lock Martin...Or  "the planet Earth will have to be eliminated."




Jan 19, 1961: JFK received his Nuclear Football briefing. Here is the memo describing it and Eisenhower's account of it in his memoir "The White House Years: A Personal Account 1956-1961: WAGING PEACE" (1965)




President-elect Donald J. Trump's "nuclear football" briefing on January 19, 2017 as first reported by Jon Karl in his book, "Tired of Winning" released November 14, 2023.




January 19, 1977: an extremely rare event occurred - Snow fell in Miami, Florida, for the 1st time in the recorded history of the city according to the weather boys. Snow began to fall between 8:00 AM and 9:30 AM as an arctic cold front made its way down the usually sunny warm coast of Florida. Accumulations up to 2 inches fell along Interstate 4 between Tampa and Orlando. Statewide, agricultural damage from the cold wave totaled to $350 million (equivalent to $1.76 billion in 2023), and losses overall totaled to $2 billion (equivalent to $10.1 billion in 2023).




January 19, 1978: Production in Germany of the iconic Volkswagen Beetle ended in Emden on the river Ems, Germany. The VW Beetle is one of the most popular cars in history, with over 22 million cars sold worldwide. It was designed by Ferdinand Porsche in response to Hitler's demand for a "people's car".




Trump lays wreath at Arlington National Cemetery’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier