history

Chris Knight's avatar
SDI, Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars, missiles, nuclear weapons, antiballistic

It was thirty years ago this week that President Ronald Reagan gave a historic speech proposing, for the first time, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system for the United States.  The plan, once developed, would utilize ground and space-based weaponry to blast apart incoming nuclear missiles.  The basic premise was an array of missile-launching satellites around the Earth.  A far more radical design called for the deployment of platforms in orbit: either carrying anti-missile lasers or particle beams, or as part of an adaptive-optics system which would focus a surface-generated laser onto a moving target anywhere around the world (see illustration).

The official name for the concept was Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI.  But for reasons apparent to everyone it was quickly labeled “Star Wars” by the mainstream press and the name stuck.

SDI gained notoriety overnight, as much from many people in the United States as from the government ...

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Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin

The Knight Shift today is remembering and honoring the life of an army officer from Nazi Germany.  And for good reason…

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin was born in July of 1922.  More than two decades later at the age of 22, he was an infantry officer of the German army.  Ironic, since both Ewald-Heinrich and his father hated everything there was about Nazi ideology (the elder von Kleist-Schmenzin had even tried to arouse support from western countries for a coup against Hitler).

In January of 1944, Ewald-Heinrich was approached by Claus von Stauffenberg for a bold plan: to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a suicide bombing.  Von Kleist-Schmenzin volunteered to take the place of a wounded officer.  However the attempt had to be cancelled because Hitler kept postponing the event which would have him placed near the bomb.

Then came the following summer, and von Kleist-Schmenzin became involved with the now-famous July ...

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Chris Knight's avatar
Pope Benedict XVI, retirement, abdicates, abdication, Roman Catholic Church, history, helicopter

Pope Benedict XVI, the first pontiff in nearly 600 years to depart the seat of Bishop of Rome voluntarily instead of dying in office, flies off by helicopter: leaving the Vatican and the post he has held since 2005.

Now begins sede vacante. The “time of the empty chair”. One which in the days and weeks ahead, the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church will seek to fill in prayerful guidance. Thus will this most persistent of institutions continue with a lineage of leadership stretching back to the ancient of days.

But in the meantime, though I am not Catholic, this blogger wishes good luck and godspeed to Benedict XVI. May his days be long and fruitful!...

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The message went out loud and clear last night from citizens and their elected representatives alike: “Mayor Festerman, tear down this tree!”

Confederate Soldiers Monument in downtown
Reidsville, North Carolina prior to the
May 2011 accident

Lots of friends who went to yesterday evening’s meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners conveyed the good news: that by unanimous vote, all five board members passed a resolution calling for the return of the Confederate Soldiers Monument in downtown Reidsville.

And what’s more, there was not one person at the near-capacity public hearing in Wentworth who spoke against restoring the monument.

Let that lil’ detail sink in, friends and neighbors. During a two-plus hour public meeting that had been announced and advertised well in advance, nobody came to the podium to insist or remotely suggest that the monument remain absent from the town’s landscape. That alone indicates the overwhelming belief ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

If love of history is a vice, then the past couple of days have been hardcore porn for me.

Inclement weather brought on icy roads this past Sunday night, so I decided to stay over at my girlfriend’s house and leave early the next morning. I was already awake up in the guest room when the news broke that Pope Benedict XVI had announced he would be resigning at the end of the month. It was shocking enough to send me racing downstairs to knock on Kristen’s bedroom door to tell her about it.

I’m kinda glad for the early-morning insomnia: Lord only knows what would have happened if I was halfway asleep and heard something like that. Probably have broken my neck trying to tumble out of bed…

This sort of thing is absolutely fascinating to me. It has been very nearly 600 years since the last time ...

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From the land Down Under, The Age has the following very strange story of historical revisionism and giant robots. From the article…

VCE scores changed over Battle Tech Marauder confusion

February 8, 2013
Jewel Topsfield

One hundred and thirty confused VCE history students had their scores adjusted after an artwork featuring a mysterious robot who appeared to be assisting socialist revolutionaries in 1917 was accidentally used in last year’s exam.

The VCE exam body apologised after the doctored version of Storming of the Winter Palace by Nikolai Kochergin formed part of a question about the Russian Revolution in the History: Revolutions exam.

The altered image had been sourced from the internet.

While many students did not notice a giant robot – rather like BattleTech Marauder II – in the background of the artwork, others were distracted by the strange image, suggesting it was anything from a statue of prime

...
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Chris Knight's avatar

I was already up in the wee hours of the morning when the news came out of the Vatican that Pope Benedict XVI, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, announced that he will be resigning the papacy at the end of this month.

My first thought was “is this a joke?”, but that notion lasted the better part of 8 seconds. When it finally sank in that His Holiness would, indeed, be exiting the post he has held since succeeding John Paul II in 2005, my mind went reeling. And it hasn’t slowed any throughout this day.

I am not Catholic, but I did know that it had been a long… like, a waaaay long time, since a sitting pope had left the Holy See by choice. It turns out that the last time was Pope Gregory XII. That was in 1415.

Nearly six hundred years ago.

Ummmm… “wow”?

Consider ...

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They paved Plantagenet and put up a parking lot.

Richard III of England, in better days

I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

— Richard III
Act I, Scene 1, by William Shakespeare

The realms of history ...

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It was cold as it gets, that early February morning on the North Atlantic. The USAT Dorchester was en route to Greenland, carrying nearly nine hundred U.S. soldiers on their way to the European theater. The Dorchester was part of a convoy of Navy and Coast Guard vessels: necessity for the grim threat of the German U-boats.

The Dorchester was struck by torpedo just before 1 in the morning. The ship began to take on water fast, and a frantic chaos ensued in the desperation to escape.

Among those aboard were four United States Army chaplains. George L. Fox was a Methodist minister. Alexander D. Goode was a Jewish rabbi. Carl V. Poling had served as a Baptist and Church of Christ minister before being ordained in the Reformed Church of America. John P. Washington was a Roman Catholic priest.

As the Dorchester descended into the frigid waters, the four ...

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