1940

Today in History 07/03 (Battle of Mers-el-Kébir)

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The French warship Bretagne is shown partly submerged and enveloped in smoke after being attacked by British warships on July 3, 1940 (© Central Press/Getty Images)(1940) Britain destroys French ships to keep them from Germany
With 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 also known as the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, was part of Operation Catapult. The operation was a British naval attack on French Navy ships at the base at Mers El Kébir on the coast of French Algeria. The bombardment killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship and damaged five ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two crewmen killed.
Date: Jul 03, 1940

French destroyer leader Mogador
The French destroyer Mogador running aground, after having been hit by a 15-inch shell
wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-Kébir
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(1940) Britain destroys French ships to keep them from Germany.
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1886 | Karl Benz presents his Benz Patent Motorwagen
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1913 | Blue and Gray meet again a half-century on at Gettysburg
The Great Reunion gathers veterans of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg 50 years after the US Civil War’s bloodiest battle was waged. More than 53,000 camp on the Pennsylvania battlefield site, and a reenactment of Pickett’s Charge ends in clasped hands between the former enemies.

Today in History 09/07/17

The effects of the first big concerted attack of the German air force in London, Sept 7, 1940 (© AP)(1940) Nazi Germany unleashes a blitzkrieg on London
Bombs 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
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

wiki/The_Blitz
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Today in History 08/20/17

Leon Trotsky on Aug 9, 1940, just 11 days before an attack made on him at his home in Mexico City (© AP)(1940) Former Bolshevist hero gets on the wrong side of Stalin
Twice 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.

wiki/Leon_Trotsky
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Today in History 07/10/17

Two German Luftwaffe bombers return from an attack against the British south coast during the Battle of Britain in 1940 (© AP)(1940) Germany’s Luftwaffe launches air attacks on Britain
Britons 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.
Start date: Jul 10, 1940
End date: Oct 31, 1940

wiki/Battle_of_Britain
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Today in History 07/03/17

The French warship Bretagne is shown partly submerged and enveloped in smoke after being attacked by British warships on July 3, 1940 (© Central Press/Getty Images)(1940) Britain destroys French ships to keep them from Germany
With 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.
Date: Jul 03, 1940

wiki/Attack_on_Mers-el-K%C3%A9bir
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