[guide.chat] History here for you all to Raed

  • From: "Carol O'Connor" <missbossyboots33@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "guide Chat List" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 1 Sep 2011 10:59:12 +0100



HENRY V OF ENGLAND DIES AT 35 - AUGUST 31, 1422

Henry V (16 September 1386 - 31 August 1422) was King of England from 1413 
until his death at the age of 35. He was the second monarch belonging to the 
House of Lancaster.
After military experience fighting various lords who rebelled against his 
father, Henry IV, Henry came into political conflict with the increasingly ill 
king. After his father's death, Henry rapidly assumed control of the country 
and embarked on war with France. From an unassuming start, his military 
successes in the Hundred Years' War, culminating with his famous victory at the 
Battle of Agincourt, saw him come close to conquering France. After months of 
negotiation with Charles VI of France, the Treaty of Troyes recognised him as 
regent and heir to the French throne, and he was subsequently married to 
Charles' daughter, Catherine of Valois. 
Henry V died suddenly on 31 August 1422 at the Château de Vincennes near Paris, 
apparently from dysentery which he had contracted during the siege of Meaux. He 
was almost 36 years old.
Before his death, Henry V named his brother John, Duke of Bedford regent of 
France in the name of his son Henry VI, then only a few months old. Henry V did 
not live to be crowned King of France himself, as he might confidently have 
expected after the Treaty of Troyes, because ironically the sickly Charles VI, 
to whom he had been named heir, survived him by two months. Catherine took 
Henry's body to London and he was buried in Westminster Abbey on 7 November 
1422.
Henry features in three plays by William Shakespeare. He is shown as a young 
scapegrace who redeems himself in battle in the two Henry IV plays and as a 
decisive leader in Henry V. 
THE GLEIWITZ INCIDENT ON THE EVE OF WWII - AUGUST 31, 1939

The Gleiwitz Incident was a staged attack by Nazi forces posing as Poles on 31 
August 1939, against the German radio station Sender Gleiwitz in Gleiwitz, 
Upper Silesia, Germany (since 1945: Gliwice, Poland) on the eve of World War II 
in Europe.
This provocation was the best-known of several actions in Operation Himmler, a 
series of unconventional operations undertaken by the SS in order to serve 
specific propaganda goals of Nazi Germany at the outbreak of the war. It was 
intended to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany in order 
to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland, and the beginning of World War 
II. 
On the night of 31 August 1939, a small group of German operatives, dressed in 
Polish uniforms seized the Gleiwitz station and broadcast a short anti-German 
message in Polish (sources vary on the content of the message). The Germans' 
goal was to make the attack and the broadcast look like the work of anti-German 
Polish saboteurs.
To make the attack seem more convincing, the Germans brought in Franciszek 
Honiok, a German Silesian known for sympathizing with the Poles, who had been 
arrested the previous day by the Gestapo. Honiok was dressed to look like a 
saboteur; then killed by lethal injection, given gunshot wounds, and left dead 
at the scene, so that he appeared to have been killed while attacking the 
station. His corpse was subsequently presented as proof of the attack to the 
police and press. 

HARMON 1ST WARSHIP NAMED AFTER AFRICAN-AMERICAN | AUG. 31, 1943

The USS Harmon (DE-678) was a Buckley-class destroyer escort of the United 
States Navy. USS Harmon was named after Mess Attendant Leonard Roy Harmon, who 
was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for his actions on the USS San 
Francisco during the battle of Guadalcanal. USS Harmon was the first warship to 
be named after an African-American.
Harmon was launched 25 July 1943 by Bethlehem Steel Co., Quincy, Massachusetts; 
sponsored by Mrs. Nau-nita Harmon Carroll, mother of Mess Attendant Harmon; and 
commissioned 31 August 1943. Harmon was struck from the Navy List on 1 August 
1965, and sold to North American Smelting Co., Wilmington, Delaware on 30 
January 1967 to be scrapped.
Harmon received three battle stars for World War II service. 

THE 'SUPER GUPPY' TAKES FIRST FLIGHT EVER - AUGUST 31, 1965.

The Aero Spacelines Super Guppy is a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft used for 
ferrying outsized cargo components. It was the successor to the Pregnant Guppy, 
the first of the Guppy aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines. Five were built in 
two variants, both of which were colloquially referred to as the "Super Guppy."
The first, the Super Guppy, or "SG", was built directly from the fuselage of a 
C-97J Turbo Stratocruiser, the military version of the Boeing 377. The fuselage 
was lengthened to 141 feet (43 m), and ballooned out to a maximum inside 
diameter of 25 ft (7.6 m), the length of the cargo compartment being 94 ft 6 in 
(28.8 m). The floor of the cargo compartment was still only 8 ft 9 in (2.7 m) 
wide, as necessitated by the use of the Stratocruiser fuselage. It could carry 
a load of 54,000 pounds (24,545kg) and cruise at 300 mph (480 km/h).
In the early 1970s, the two Super Guppies were used by Airbus Industrie to 
transport aeroplane parts from decentralised production facilities to the final 
assembly plant in Toulouse. The running joke was "Every Airbus is delivered on 
the wings of a Boeing". In 1982 and 1983 two additional Super Guppies were 
built by UTA Industries in France after Airbus bought the right to produce the 
aircraft. The four Super Guppies have since been replaced by the Airbus Beluga, 
capable of carrying twice as much cargo.
The last produced Super Guppy remains in service: an SGT flown by NASA 
(currently used to ferry components for the International Space Station and 
Project Orion). The other four are mothballed. 
KRGYZSTAN DECLARES INDEPENDENCE - AUGUST 31, 1991.

Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six 
independent Turkic states (along with Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, 
Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan). Located in Central Asia, landlocked and 
mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to 
the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and People's Republic of China to the 
east. Its capital and largest city is Bishkek.
"Kyrgyz", is believed to have been derived from the Turkic word for "forty", in 
reference to the forty clans of Manas, a legendary hero who united forty 
regional clans against the Uyghers. Literally it means We are forty. At the 
time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghers dominated much of Central Asia 
(including Kyrgyzstan), Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China.
On 19 August 1991, when the State Emergency Committee assumed power in Moscow, 
there was an attempt to depose Akayev in Kyrgyzstan. After the coup collapsed 
the following week, Akayev and Vice President German Kuznetsov announced their 
resignations from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), and the 
entire bureau and secretariat resigned. This was followed by the Supreme Soviet 
vote declaring independence from the Soviet Union on 31 August 1991 as the 
Republic of Kyrgyzstan.
In October 1991, Akayev ran unopposed and was elected president of the new 
independent Republic by direct ballot, receiving 95% of the votes cast. 
Together with the representatives of seven other Republics that same month, he 
signed the Treaty of the New Economic Community. Finally, on 21 December 1991, 
Kyrgyzstan joined with the other four Central Asian Republics to formally enter 
the new Commonwealth of Independent States. Kyrgyzstan gained full independence 
a few days later on 25 December 1991. The following day, 26 December 1991, the 
Soviet Union ceased to exist. In 1992, Kyrgyzstan joined the UN and the OSCE. 

DEATH OF DIANA, PRINCESS OF WALES - AUG 31, 1997.

On 31 August 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, died as a result of injuries 
sustained in a car accident in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, France. 
Her companion, Dodi Fayed, and the driver of the Mercedes-Benz W140, Henri 
Paul, were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Fayed's bodyguard, 
Trevor Rees-Jones, was the only survivor. Although at first the media pinned 
the blame on the paparazzi, the crash was ultimately found to be caused by the 
reckless actions of the chauffeur, who was the head of security at the Ritz and 
had earlier goaded the paparazzi waiting outside the hotel. 
An 18-month French judicial investigation concluded in 1999 that the crash was 
caused by Henri Paul, who lost control of the car at high speed while drunk. 
His inebriation may have been made worse by the simultaneous presence of an 
anti-depressant and traces of a tranqulizing anti-psychotic in his body. 
Diana's death was met with extraordinary public expressions of grief, and her 
public funeral at Westminster Abbey on 6 September drew an estimated 3 million 
mourners and onlookers in London, as well as worldwide television coverage, 
which overshadowed the news of the death the previous day of Mother Teresa. 
More than one million bouquets were left at her London home, Kensington Palace. 

The Alma tunnel in Paris, where Princess Diana died

2005 BAGHDAD BRIDGE STAMPEDE - AUGUST 31, 2005
The 2005 Baghdad bridge stampede occurred on August 31, 2005 when 953 people 
died following a stampede on Al-Aaimmah bridge, which crosses the Tigris river 
in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. At the time of the stampede, around one 
million pilgrims had gathered around or were marching toward the Al Kadhimiya 
Mosque, which is the shrine of the Imam Musa al-Kazim, one of the twelve Shi'a 
Imams. 
Tensions had been high within the crowd. Earlier in the day, seven people were 
killed and dozens more were wounded in a mortar attack upon the assembled crowd 
for which an Al-Qaeda linked insurgent group claimed responsibility. Near the 
shrine, rumors of an imminent suicide bomb attack broke out, panicking many 
pilgrims. Interior Minister Bayan Baqir Solagh said that one person "pointed a 
finger at another person saying that he was carrying explosives.and that led to 
the panic".
The panicked crowd flocked to the bridge, which had been closed. Somehow, the 
gate at their end of the bridge opened, and the pilgrims rushed through. Some 
people fell onto the concrete base and died instantly. The ensuing crush of 
people caused many to suffocate. The pressure of the crowd caused the bridge's 
iron railings to give way, dropping hundreds of people 9 meters (about 30 feet) 
into the Tigris river. There was nowhere on the bridge for the people to go, as 
the other end of the bridge remained closed, and was impossible to open anyway, 
as it opened inward.
A three-day mourning period was announced by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim 
al-Jaafari. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the catastrophe "will leave a 
scar in our souls and will be remembered with those who died in the result of 
terror acts." Many of the dead were buried in the holy Shia Islamic town of 
Najaf. 

 
    Please feel  free to pass along; copy and paste into New Message.  Use BCC 
line when addressing.  Help prevent Identity Theft. 

Other related posts:

  • » [guide.chat] History here for you all to Raed - Carol O'Connor