On This Day...

[MadDevil]

April 14th

1865 - President Lincoln assassinated: President Abraham Lincoln is shot in the head at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, "Sic semper tyrannis! (Ever thus to tyrants!) The South is avenged," as he jumped onto the stage and fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning.

1912 - Titanic hits iceberg: After stopping at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown, Ireland, to pick up some final passengers, the massive vessel set out at full speed for New York City. However, just before midnight on April 14, the ship hit an iceberg, and five of the Titanic's compartments were ruptured along its starboard side. Because of a shortage of lifeboats and the lack of satisfactory emergency procedures, more than 1,500 people went down in the sinking ship or froze to death in the icy North Atlantic waters. Most of the approximately 700 survivors were women and children.

1965 - 173rd Airborne Brigade ordered to South Vietnam: The Joint Chiefs of Staff order the deployment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade from Okinawa to South Vietnam. The 173rd arrived in Vietnam in May 1965 and was the first major U.S. Army ground combat unit committed to the war.

1986 - U.S. bombs Libya: On April 14, 1986, the United States launches air strikes against Libya in retaliation for the Libyan sponsorship of terrorism against American troops and citizens. The raid, which began shortly before 7 p.m. EST (2 a.m., April 15 in Libya), involved more than 100 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft, and was over within an hour. Five military targets and "terrorism centers" were hit, including the headquarters of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi.

[slapshot™]

If you have a Canadian $10 bill, look at the back right side of the bill.

You will see an old veteran standing at attention near the Ottawa war
memorial.

His name is Robert Metcalfe and he died last month at the age of 90. That
he managed to live to that age is rather remarkable, given what happened in
the Second World War.

Born in England, he one of the 400,000 members of the British Expeditionary
Force sent to the mainland where they found themselves facing the new German
warfare technique - the Blitzkrieg.
He was treating a wounded comrade when he was hit in the legs by shrapnel.
Enroute to hospital, his ambulance came under fire from a German tank which
then miraculously ceased fire.

Evacuated from Dunkirk on HMS Grenade, two of the sister ships with them
were sunk.

Recovered, he was sent to allied campaigns in north Africa and Italy.
Enroute his ship was chased by the German battleship Bismarck.

In North Africa he served under General Montgomery against the Desert Fox,
Rommel
Sent into the Italian campaign, he met his future wife, a lieutenant and
physiotherapist in a Canadian hospital.
They were married in the morning by the mayor of the Italian town, and
again in the afternoon by a British padre. After the war they settled in
Chatham where he went into politics and became the warden (chairman) of the
county.

At the age of 80 he wrote a book about his experiences and on his
retirement he and his wife moved to Ottawa. One day out of the blue he
received a call from a government official asking him to go downtown for a
photo op. He wasn't told what the photo was for or why the chose him.

"He had no idea he would be on the bill," his daughter said.

And now you know the rest of the story.

[slapshot™]

On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia to crush the "Prague Spring"--a brief period of liberalization in the communist country. Czechoslovakians protested the invasion with public demonstrations and other non-violent tactics, but they were no match for the Soviet tanks. The liberal reforms of First Secretary Alexander Dubcek were repealed and "normalization" began under his successor Gustav Husak.

Pro-Soviet communists seized control of Czechoslovakia's democratic government in 1948. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin imposed his will on Czechoslovakia's communist leaders, and the country was run as a Stalinist state until 1964, when a gradual trend toward liberalization began. However, modest economic reform was not enough for many Czechoslovakians, and beginning in 1966 students and intellectuals began to agitate for changes to education and an end to censorship. First Secretary Antonin Novotny's problems were made worse by opposition from Slovakian leaders, among them Alexander Dubcek and Gustav Husak, who accused the central government of being dominated by Czechs.

In January 1968, Novotny was replaced as first secretary by Alexander Dubcek, who was unanimously elected by the Czechoslovakian Central Committee. To secure his power base, Dubcek appealed to the public to voice support for his proposed reforms. The response was overwhelming, and Czech and Slovak reformers took over the communist leadership.

In April, the new leadership unveiled its "Action Program," promising democratic elections, greater autonomy for Slovakia, freedom of speech and religion, the abolition of censorship, an end to restrictions on travel, and major industrial and agricultural reforms. Dubcek declared that he was offering "socialism with a human face." The Czechoslovakian public greeted the reforms joyously, and Czechoslovakia's long stagnant national culture began to bloom during what became known as the Prague Spring. In late June, a popular petition called the "Two Thousand Words" was published calling for even more rapid progress to full democracy. The Soviet Union and its satellites Poland and East Germany were alarmed by what appeared to be the imminent collapse of communism in Czechoslovakia.

Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev warned Dubcek to halt his reforms, but the Czechoslovakian leader was buoyed by his popularity and dismissed the veiled threats. Dubcek declined to attend a special meeting of the Warsaw Pact powers in July, but on August 2 he agreed to meet with Brezhnev in the Slovakian town of Cierny. The next day, representatives of European Europe's communist parties met in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava, and a communiqu? was issued suggesting that pressure would be eased on Czechoslovakia in exchange for tighter control over the press.

However, on the night of August 20, nearly 200,000 Soviet, East German, Polish, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops invaded Czechoslovakia in the largest deployment of military force in Europe since the end of World War II. Armed resistance to the invasion was negligible, but protesters immediately took to the streets, tearing down streets signs in an effort to confuse the invaders. In Prague, Warsaw Pact troops moved to seize control of television and radio stations. At Radio Prague, journalists refused to give up the station and some 20 people were killed before it was captured. Other stations went underground and succeeded in broadcasting for several days before their locations were discovered.

Dubcek and other government leaders were detained and taken to Moscow. Meanwhile, widespread demonstrations continued on the street, and more than 100 protesters were shot to death by Warsaw Pact troops. Many foreign nations, including China, Yugoslavia, and Romania, condemned the invasion, but no major international action was taken. Much of Czechoslovakia's intellectual and business elite fled en masse to the West.

On August 27, Dubcek returned to Prague and announced in an emotional address that he had agreed to curtail his reforms. Hard-line communists assumed positions in his government, and Dubcek was forced gradually to dismiss his progressive aides. He became increasingly isolated from both the public and his government. After anti-Soviet rioting broke out in April 1969, he was removed as first secretary and replaced by Gustav Husak, a "realist" who was willing to work with the Soviets. Dubcek was later expelled from the Communist Party and made a forest inspector based in Bratislava.

In 1989, as communist governments collapsed across Eastern Europe, Prague again became the scene of demonstrations for democratic reform. In December 1989, Gustav Husak's government conceded to demands for a multiparty parliament. Husak resigned, and for the first time in nearly two decades Dubcek returned to politics as chairman of the new parliament, which subsequently elected playwright and former dissident Vaclav Havel as president of Czechoslovakia. Havel had come to fame during the Prague Spring, and after the Soviet crackdown his plays were banned and his passport confiscated.

Also on August 20th.....

1940 Trotsky assassinated in Mexico
Exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky is fatally wounded by an ice-ax-wielding assassin at his compound outside Mexico City. The killer--Ramn Mercader--was a Spanish communist and probable agent of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Trotsky died from his wounds the next day.

1975 Viking 1 launched to Mars
Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars.

On June 19, 1976, the spacecraft entered into orbit around Mars and devoted the next month to imaging the Martian surface with the purpose of finding an appropriate landing site for its lander. On July 20--the seventh anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing--the Viking 1 lander separated from the orbiter and touched down on the Chryse Planitia region, becoming the first spacecraft to successfully land on the surface of Mars. The same day, the craft sent back the first close-up photographs of the rust-colored Martian surface.

Born on this day.....

H.P. Lovecraft (1890 - 1937) Jack Teagarden (1905 - 1964) Don King (1931 - ) Isaac Hayes (1942 - ) Connie Chung (1946 - ) Robert Plant (1948 - ) Al Roker (1954 - ) Joan Allen (1956 - )

[charlio lemieux]

"On the night of August 20, 1968, approximately 200,000 Warsaw Pact troops and 5,000 tanks invade Czechoslovakia"

Thats why Jagr wears 68.

"His name is Robert Metcalfe and he died last month at the age of 90. That
he managed to live to that age is rather remarkable, given what happened in
the Second World War."


We have never truly apreciated what that generation gave up for Us. Thanks for bringing his story.