chick79 said:
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of The Declaration of Independence. James Monroe died on the same day exactly five years later.
INCORRECTAgthatbuilds said:
At the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, the marathon was strange. The first place finisher did most of the race in a car, the guy in second almost died from eating rat poison, and the fourth place finisher raced in dress pants and shoes, and took a nap by the side of the road for part of the race.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-1904-olympic-marathon-may-have-been-the-strangest-ever-14910747/
The US Army intentionally poisoned all of San Francisco in 1950
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea-Spray
Operation Tiger:
Prior to dday, the allies had a training beach landing in which about 750 soldiers died because of friendly fire, poor communication and a uboat attack
George Patton's grandfather was also there on the Confederate side. He died of wounds sustained in the battle several days later.LMCane said:
19 September 1864 Battle of Third Winchester
not just one, but two future US Presidents would fight on the same battlefield within a mile of each other.
And the last execution by guillotine took place in 1977...after Star Wars came out.Rabid Cougar said:
The last public execution by guillotine took place in 1939...
As a retired American Serviceman (USMC and USAF), as an Englishman (and Irishman and Texan) by birth, family and heredity, this makes me both sad...and extremely proud. We've lost a lot of that service, courage and selflessness...but it still lives...we just need to remind people.JABQ04 said:
As a former artilleryman, the fact the British and French fired 1.75 MILLION artillery shells the week prior to the battle of the Somme is staggering. Even more somber is the fact they took approx 60K casualties with 20K of them being KIA on the first day of the assault.
Not really mind blowing but the most poignant memorial on the Somme (imho) is at Devonshire Cemetary. Formerly the front line trench for the 9th Devonshire regiment, when it stepped off on July 1, 1916 it suffered heavy losses and as many of thei comrades were buried in their former trench. The memorial simply stated (and still does today)
"The Devonshires held this trench. The Devonshires hold it still"
If I remember correctly, his children played with the children of Jeff Davis.YokelRidesAgain said:George Patton's grandfather was also there on the Confederate side. He died of wounds sustained in the battle several days later.LMCane said:
19 September 1864 Battle of Third Winchester
not just one, but two future US Presidents would fight on the same battlefield within a mile of each other.
What? I'm the one who made this thread, I was just making a joke since Coronado was not a nice guy. I love history, please stop acting like the policeCanyonAg77 said:
Do you Premium Board posters spend the off season looking for threads to crap on?
I always thought that the oak ridge site was the most expensive - guess I need to look into this! I was way off - Thanks for bringing it up.TexAgBolter said:
Most expensive US WW2 wartime project was not the Manhattan Project, but the development of the B29 bomber.
It was a 'Tex' but not Ritter. Frederick Bean 'Tex' Avery from Taylor, Tx and Bob Clampett were given credit for the character.BQ78 said:
Sticking with that theme, Tex Ritter developed the character of Daffy Duck while duck hunting on White Rock Lake.
I toured the Tower of London and they said this exact point - when they first dug the moat around the castle to deep or deeper than the Thames river so none of the body waste would leave the premises when the tide came in or out. The body waste would go right into the moat.Jabin said:
I've read historical novels set in part in London in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. They describe the Thames as an open sewer that did not drain. Since Thames is tidal, all of the sludge would come back with the rising tide.
There were at least 2 million people in London by that time, and hundreds of thousands of horses. Everything went into the Thames, if it went anywhere. If someone happened to fall into the river, their life expectancy was measured in days. Everyone visiting London commented on how horribly it stunk.
And this was before large scale industrialization added coal soot to the air. Air quality was so bad in the late 19th and early 20th century that people died during periods of heavy smog.Jabin said:
I've read historical novels set in part in London in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. They describe the Thames as an open sewer that did not drain. Since Thames is tidal, all of the sludge would come back with the rising tide.
There were at least 2 million people in London by that time, and hundreds of thousands of horses. Everything went into the Thames, if it went anywhere. If someone happened to fall into the river, their life expectancy was measured in days. Everyone visiting London commented on how horribly it stunk.
