Aug 23

The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft. It is the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over 40 models and variants of the Hercules serve more than 50 nations. The C-130 remains in production as the updated C-130J Super Hercules.

Capable of takeoffs and landings from unprepared runways, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation, and cargo transport aircraft. The Hercules family has the longest continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. The Korean War showed that World War II-era transports were inadequate for modern warfare. On February 2, 1951, the United States Air Force issued a General Operating Requirement for a new transport that would have a capacity for 92 passengers, 72 combat troops or 64 paratroopers, takeoff capability from short and unprepared strips, and the ability to fly with one engine shut down.

The first flight of the YC-130 prototype was made on August 23, 1954 from the Lockheed plant in Burbank, California on a 61-minute flight to Edwards Air Force Base. After the two prototypes were completed, production began in Marietta, Georgia, where more than 2,000 C-130s have been built. Deliveries began in December 1956, continuing until the introduction of the C-130B model in 1959.

Posted in US History | No Comments »
Aug 10

In the early days of November 1968, Charles Manson established his “Family” at alternative headquarters in Death Valley, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches. Back at the Spahn Ranch, Manson and one his followers, Tex Watson, listened to the Beatles White Album. Manson became obsessed with the music group. He believed that racial tension between black and whites was growing and that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion.

Manson believed that this social turmoil had been predicted by the Beatles. He also believed that the White Album featured coded instructions directed at Manson and his followers. After Manson instructed his followers to kill actress Sharon Tate and her companions on August 9, 1969, six of them targeted supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner.

Manson accompanied his followers and helped Watson bind Leno’s hands. Manson then instructed Watson to cover the couple’s heads with pillow cases. Manson left, sending two of his followers in to kill the LaBiancas. Watson stabbed Leno repeatedly with a chrome-plated bayonet. After hearing noises in another room, Watson went to investigate and found Rosemary swinging the lamp tied to her neck. After subduing her, Watson resumed stabbing and killing Leno. Two other followers stabbed Rosemary to death and wrote, “Rise” and “Death to pigs,” on the walls in blood.

Posted in US History | No Comments »
Aug 6

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima was a nuclear attack at the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the order of U.S. President Harry S. Truman. After six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities, the nuclear weapon “Little Boy” was dropped on Monday, August 6, 1945. The bomb killed as many as 140,000 people. Since then, thousands more have died from injuries or illness attributed to exposure to radiation released by the bomb.

On May 10-11, 1945, the Target Committee at Los Alamos, recommended Kyoto, Hiroshima, Yokohama, and Kokura as possible targets. The criteria included targets larger than three miles in diameter and in a large urban area; the blast would create effective damage; and were unlikely to be attacked by August 1945. Hiroshima was described as “an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area.” The goal of the weapon was to convince Japan to surrender unconditionally.

August 6 was chosen because there had previously been cloud cover over the target. The 393rd Bombardment Squadron B-29 Enola Gay was launched from the West Pacific. The release of the bomb was uneventful. The gravity bomb known as “Little Boy’ took 57 seconds to fall from the aircraft to the predetermined detonation height above the city. It created a blast equivalent to about 13 kilotons of TNT. The radius of total destruction was about one mile.

Posted in Asian History, US History | No Comments »
Aug 3

The USS Nautilus was the world’s first operational nuclear-powered submarine and the first vessel to complete a submerged transit across the North Pole. In July 1951, the United States Congress authorized the construction of nuclear-powered submarine for the US Navy.

Nautilus’ keel was laid at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat Division in Groton, Connecticut by President Harry S. Truman on June 14, 1952. She was christened on January 21, 1954 and launched into the Thames River. Nautilus was commissioned on September 30, 1954, under the command of Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN. She was put to sea for the first time on January 17, 1955. From 1955 to 1957, Nautilus continued to be used to investigate the effects of increased submerged speeds and endurance.

Nautilus began the history-making polar transit, Operation Sunshine, on June 9, 1958. On June 28, she arrived at Pearl Harbor to await better ice conditions and by July 23, she set a course northward. On August 3, Nautilus became the first watercraft to reach the geographic North Pole. From there, she continued on and after 96 hours and 2,945 km under the ice, she surfaced northeast of Greenland, having completed the first successful submerged voyage across the North Pole.