Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

I went to logon to the cybernetic X earlier today and...




I went to logon to RN and same damn problem. So weird!

Turns out RN was just a momentary cardiac issue and popped right up just before my fist hit the screen. Whoa, close call!


March 10, 1945: one of the ~9,300 balloon bombs launched by Japan briefly interrupted off-site electrical power to the Hanford Reservation in Washington State, causing the B-, D-, and F-reactors—which were making plutonium for the Fat Man atomic bomb destined for Nagasaki—to scram.

Robert Mikesh's fascinating monograph about this little-known aspect of WWII history. Which also led to the only deaths in the continental United States caused by a foreign attack, though US censorship about the balloons was a contributing factor.



Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America (1973; 94 page PDF)


ATOMS: Einstein, the Man Who Started It All


Newsweek (US Edition) (1947-March 10: Vol 29 Issue 10)


March 10, 1949: Axis wartime broadcaster Mildred Gillars (“Axis Sally”) was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison in the USA, becoming the first American woman ever to be convicted of treason against the United States. She was paroled in 1961.

On 6 May 1940, Gillars obtained work as an announcer with the Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft (RRG), German State Radio. She became their highest paid employee, and sometimes went by the name of "Midge at the mike".

Gillars's initial broadcasts were largely apolitical, but started with the phrase "this is Berlin calling the American mothers, wives and sweethearts. And I’d just like to say, girls, when Berlin calls it pays to listen". Gillars soon acquired several names amongst her GI audience, including the "Bitch of Berlin", "Berlin Babe", "Olga", and "Sally", but the most common was "Axis Sally".


She was captured & arrested on March 14, 1946 in Berlin by US War Dept. Counterintelligence Corps, conditionally released from custody on December 24, 1946. She was abruptly re-arrested on January 22, 1947, after being offered conditional release by the United States at the request of the Justice Department and was eventually flown to the United States on August 21, 1948, to await trial on charges of aiding the German war effort. Indicted on September 10, 1948, and charged with ten counts of treason, but only eight were used at her trial, which began on January 25, 1949. On March 10, 1949, the jury convicted Gillars on just one count of treason, that of making the Vision of Invasion broadcast. She was stripped of her US citizenship, was sentenced to 10 to 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The judge spared Gillars from a harsher sentence since she had not participated in high-level Nazi propaganda policy conferences.

She served her sentence at the holler resort Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, West Virginia. Shortly before her death, a neighbour claimed that she showed her a cup that she described as one of her most cherished possessions. She said that it had been given to her by Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS. Gillars died of colon cancer at Grant Medical Center in Columbus on June 25, 1988.

Gillars's wartime broadcasts and trial are the subject of the 2021 legal drama American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally.

Axis Sally: The Americans Behind the Infamous Nazi Propaganda Broadcast

Counter Intelligence Corps Arrests Axis Sally, 14 March 1946


March 10, 1975: during a meeting with the Turkish foreign minister in his office in Ankara, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger quipped, “Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’” [Laughter]




From "The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets" (2023) by Matthew Connelly.
Matthew Connelly is a professor of international and global history at Columbia, co-director of its social science institute, and principal investigator of History Lab. He received his BA from Columbia and a Ph.D. from Yale.

CIA analyst book review:




U.S. TAXPAYER - Time magazine, March 10, 1952


The highest marginal tax rate at that time was 92%!

1952 TIME article: TAXES: The Big Bite


Raise your hand if you remember when our society was stable enough you could give out 10,000 regulation bats at a major league game without worrying everyone would immediately start trying to kill each other.


This event took place on July 14, 1990, during a game between the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati. As part of a promotion by Louisville Slugger, the first 10,000 fans in attendance were given full-sized regulation baseball bats. Basically, in one generation we've sunk to where we find ourselves today.


Extremely rare double Fallout Shelter Sign cameo in THE SEVEN-UPS (1973).



Based on the real life exploits of Sonny Grosso and Eddie Egan; the film's title, "The Seven-Ups" is from the name of a group of police in the 1950s who were only assigned felonies where the penalties were seven years and up.

The movie is notable for its legendary car chase scene.



None of the car chase was rehearsed, as the producers knew that if the police and authorities assisting the shoot, saw what was planned, they would never have given permission for it to proceed. Bill Hickman (1921-1986) stunt driver who also worked with Philip D'Antoni, who produced Bullitt and The French Connection.


UK No.1 on this day in 1985: Dead Or Alive - You Spin Me Round (like the media)
We'll go with the American version: