(1940) Nazi Germany unleashes a blitzkrieg on LondonBombs rain down on the British capital in a ‘lightning war,’ or ‘blitzkrieg,’ a favored tactic for the intimidation of Germany’s enemies. And while Hitler’s Luftwaffe will keep up the relentless attack for more than eight months, London’s populace will rise to the challenge of the Blitz.The Blitz refers to bombing by the Luftwaffe over Britain in 1940 and 1941, during the Second World War. The term was first used by the British press as an abbreviation of Blitzkrieg. The Germans conducted a mass air offensive against industrial targets, towns and cities, which began with raids on London towards the end of the Battle of Britain, a battle for air superiority over the United Kingdom. By September 1940 the Luftwaffe had failed to gain air superiority and the German air fleets were ordered to attack London, to draw RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation. Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe, ordered the new policy on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days and nights. In a large daylight attack against London on 15 September, many German aircraft were shot down.
Start date: Sep 07, 1940 End date: May 10, 1941 Air Raid Damage in Britain during the Second World War St Paul’s Cathedral, rising above the bombed London skyline, is shrouded in smoke during the Blitz. The photograph was taken from the roof of the Daily Mail offices in Fleet Street
(1940) Former Bolshevist hero gets on the wrong side of StalinTwice exiled to Siberia for revolutionary acts, then a key player in the Bolshevik Revolution, Leon Trotsky has fallen out of favor with the new Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin, and is living in Mexico City when an assassin’s ice-axe attack fatally wounds him, killing him the next day.Leon Trotsky was a Marxist revolutionary, theorist, and Soviet politician. Initially supporting the Menshevik Internationalists faction within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, he joined the Bolsheviks just before the 1917 October Revolution, immediately becoming a leader within the Communist Party. He would go on to become one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution. During the early days of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union, he served first as People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army, with the title of People’s Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He became a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War.
Lived: Nov 07, 1879 – Aug 21, 1940 (age 60) Height: 5′ 9″ (1.74 m) Spouse: Natalia Sedova (m. 1903 – 1940) · Aleksandra Sokolovskaya (m. 1899 – 1902) Children: Zinaida Volkova (Daughter) · Lev Sedov (Son) · Sergei Sedov (Son) · Nina Nevelson (Daughter) · Howard Fung (Son) Movies: The Assassination of Trotsky Founded: Red Army · Fourth International · Communist International · Left Opposition · Petrograd Soviet · International Committee of the Fourth International
Highlights
1903: Leon Trotsky married Natalia Sedova in 1903.
1917: He was, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, Sokolnikov and Bubnov, one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 to manage the Bolshevik Revolution.
1920: The Red Army was defeated by Poland and the offensive was turned back during the Battle of Warsaw in August 1920, in part because of Stalin’s failure to obey Trotsky’s orders in the run-up to the decisive engagements.
1924: Shortly after Lenin’s death in 1924, the letter was found and publicized by Trotsky’s opponents within the Communist Party to portray him as Lenin’s enemy.
1926: In early 1926, Zinoviev, Kamenev and their supporters in the “New Opposition” gravitated closer to Trotsky’s supporters, and the two groups soon formed an alliance, which also incorporated some smaller opposition groups within the Communist Party.
1940: On Stalin’s orders, he was assassinated in Mexico in August 1940 by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent.
(1940) Germany’s Luftwaffe launches air attacks on BritainBritons begin watching the skies as Hitler unleashes the destructive force of the Luftwaffe’s aerial bombers against Germany’s final unconquered European foe in the ‘Kanalkampf,’ or Channel battles. The Battle of Britain will move inland with raids on cities and civilians just two months later.The Battle of Britain was a military campaign of the Second World War, when the Royal Air Force defended the United Kingdom against the German Air Force attacks from the end of June 1940. It is described as the first major campaign fought entirely by air forces. The British officially recognise its duration as from 10 July until 31 October 1940, which overlaps with the period of large-scale night attacks known as the Blitz, while German historians do not accept this subdivision and regard it as a campaign lasting from July 1940 to June 1941.
(1940) Britain destroys French ships to keep them from GermanyWith France in the hands of the Nazi-collaborating Vichy government, Great Britain launches an air-and-sea attack to prevent the Germans from capturing a flotilla of battleships and other French Navy armaments. In the scuttling, 1,200 sailors die and three battleships are destroyed.The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, part of Operation Catapult and also known as the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, was a British naval bombardment of the French Navy at its base at Mers El Kébir on the coast of French Algeria on 3 July 1940. The raid resulted in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen, the sinking of a battleship and the damaging of five other ships.
(1829) First Oxford-Cambridge boat race plies the ThamesCambridge student Charles Merivale and his friend, Oxford’s Charles Wordsworth, devise a competition to determine which of the two premier British universities boasts the best rowers. The Boat Race will become immensely popular, attracting 250,000 or more spectators annually.The Boat Race is an annual rowing race between the Oxford University Boat Club and the Cambridge University Boat Club, rowed between men’s open-weight eights on the River Thames in London, England. It is also known as the University Boat Race and the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. wiki/The_Boat_Race(1935) An addict takes his last drink and a support group is bornDr. Bob Smith has a beer to calm himself before performing surgery, and thanks to the help of his new friend Bill Wilson, it will be his final drink of alcohol. The fellow alcoholics have come together to kick their addiction, and their collaboration will form Alcoholics Anonymous.Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith. Subsequently, The history of Alcoholics Anonymous has been documented in books, movies, and AA literature. This history begins with the group’s early struggles and continues through its worldwide growth.
Founded: 1935
wiki/History_of_Alcoholics_Anonymous(1940) Italy enters WWII on the Axis sideFive years after invading Ethiopia and leaving the League of Nations because of it, the Kingdom of Italy, under Benito Mussolini’s rule, declares war on Britain and France. Italy joins Germany and Japan as a WWII Axis power, and will be the first to fall to an Allied offensive.The participation of Italy in the Second World War was characterized by a complex framework of ideology, politics, and diplomacy, where in its military actions were often heavily influenced by external factors. The imperial ambitions of the Fascist regime, which aspired to restore a “Roman Empire” in the Mediterranean (their Mare Nostrum), were partially met with the annexation of Albania and the Province of Ljubljana, and the occupation of British Somaliland and other territories, but ultimately collapsed after defeats in the East and North African campaigns, and the fall of Italy to the Allies at the end of the Italian campaign. In 1943 Benito Mussolini was ousted and arrested by order of King Victor Emmanuel III, provoking a civil war. The northern half of the country was occupied by Germans and made a collaborationist puppet state (with more than 600,000 soldiers), while the south was governed by monarchist and liberal forces, which fought for the Allied cause in the Italian Co-Belligerent Army (at its height numbering more than 50,000 men), helped by circa 350,000 partisans of disparate political ideologies that operated all over occupied Italy. wiki/Military_history_of_Italy_during_World_War_II(2007) ‘The Sopranos’ ends, not with a bangHBO’s crime-family drama wraps up its sixth and final season with the closing scene abruptly cutting to black. The ending will leave many of the show’s 12 million viewers puzzled as to whether lead character Tony Soprano is dead or alive—or wondering if their cable got whacked.An innovative look at the life of fictional Mafia Capo Tony Soprano, this serial is presented largely first person, but additional perspective is conveyed by the intimate conversations Tony has with his psychotherapist. We see Tony at work, at home, and in therapy. Moments of black comedy intersperse this aggressive, adult drama, with adult language, and extreme violence.
First episode: Jan 10, 1999 Theme song: Woke Up This Morning Episode duration: 75 minutes Creator: David Chase Producers: David Chase · Matthew Weiner · Terence Winter · Brad Grey · Robin Green · Mitchell Burgess Awards: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series · Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series
(1940) Nazi Germany unleashes a blitzkrieg on London
(1940) Former Bolshevist hero gets on the wrong side of Stalin
(1940) Germany’s Luftwaffe launches air attacks on Britain
(1940) Britain destroys French ships to keep them from Germany
(1829) First Oxford-Cambridge boat race plies the Thames
(1935) An addict takes his last drink and a support group is born
(1940) Italy enters WWII on the Axis side
(2007) ‘The Sopranos’ ends, not with a bang