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Thread: Trivia and other useless but interesting items

  1. #2561
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    Triva but NOT trival

    A little bit of unknown history :
    It’s a day seared into America’s collective memory: December 7, 1941.
    The day Imperial Japanese warplanes launched a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging 19 US Navy ships, destroying 180 US aircraft and killing more than 2,400 Americans, servicemen and civilians.
    “A day that will live in infamy,” in the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And as the history books have it, the day that dragged the United States into World War II.
    But the first Japanese sinking of an American warship was not on that day, or even that year – and it was nowhere near Pearl Harbor, or even US soil. It was four years earlier, on a much less remembered date, thousands of miles from Hawaii.
    On December 12, 1937, the US Navy river gunboat USS Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers were evacuating American citizens trapped by Japan’s invasion of Nanjing when they were targeted from above in an attack that, like Pearl Harbor, stood out both for its mercilessness and the fact that the US and Japan were not at that time at war.

    Nine Nakajima fighters strafed the convoy with machine gun fire, shooting even on its lifeboats, while three Japanese Yokosuka rained down at least 20 132-pound bombs. Four people died – two US sailors, an oil tank captain, and an Italian journalist. More than 40 servicemen and civilians were injured.
    So shocking was the unprovoked attack that many expected Washington to declare war then and there. Had it done so the Panay’s place in history might not have been eclipsed by the events of four years later.
    But historians say the sinking of the Panay was a seminal event nonetheless, one that helped turn the tide of American opinion in a conflict seen by some academics as the beginning of World War II in Asia

    part 2

    The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized, and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.




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    [QUOTE=NavyDiver;3193792]A little bit of unknown history :
    It’s a day seared into America’s collective memory: December 7, 1941.
    The day Imperial Japanese warplanes launched a devastating surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging 19 US Navy ships, destroying 180 US aircraft and killing more than 2,400 Americans, servicemen and civilians.
    “A day that will live in infamy,” in the words of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And as the history books have it, the day that dragged the United States into World War II.
    But the first Japanese sinking of an American warship was not on that day, or even that year – and it was nowhere near Pearl Harbor, or even US soil. It was four years earlier, on a much less remembered date, thousands of miles from Hawaii.
    On December 12, 1937, the US Navy river gunboat USS Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers were evacuating American citizens trapped by Japan’s invasion of Nanjing when they were targeted from above in an attack that, like Pearl Harbor, stood out both for its mercilessness and the fact that the US and Japan were not at that time at war.

    Nine Nakajima fighters strafed the convoy with machine gun fire, shooting even on its lifeboats, while three Japanese Yokosuka rained down at least 20 132-pound bombs. Four people died – two US sailors, an oil tank captain, and an Italian journalist. More than 40 servicemen and civilians were injured.
    So shocking was the unprovoked attack that many expected Washington to declare war then and there. Had it done so the Panay’s place in history might not have been eclipsed by the events of four years later.
    But historians say the sinking of the Panay was a seminal event nonetheless, one that helped turn the tide of American opinion in a conflict seen by some academics as the beginning of World War II in Asia

    part 2

    The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized, and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.





    Imagine that if it happened the other way round......................................?

  3. #2563
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    Perhaps related to this. A few years ago I read a biography of the author Robert Heinlein. As a young man he was a naval officer, but was invalided out (with TB ) in the late 1930s, later to spend the war years as an engineer in the naval research establishment.

    In his last voyage before leaving the navy, he was on an aircraft carrier operating out of Hawaii. They took part in an exercise which was a simulated air attack on Hawaii.

    On board the ship was a Japanese delegation. His opinion was that they were taken on to demonstrate that the US Navy was capable of attacking Japan, but perhaps they went home having learned the wrong lesson?
    Last edited by p38arover; 29th May 2023 at 07:41 AM.
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    Apparently the Japanese also took a great interest in the Taranto raid by Royal Navy Swordfish in late 1940. Amongst other things, they deduced the need to adjust the depth of their torpedoes to run in the shallow waters of Pearl Harbour. 'Tis a pity the US Navy's Bureau of Ordinance didn't take a look at their own torpedoes before the beginning of the war as that turned out to be a MASSIVE scandal...
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    If my memory serves me right

    A US sub hit one of the Japanese carriers that were moving across to attack Ceylon with 4 torpedos none of which exploded. The Japanese navy never even noticed the hits or the submarine

    While not having the same problems as the US seeing a better design British torpedos were modified early on based on captured German torpedoes. This technology was then passed to the US who also used it to fix their torpedoes

  6. #2566
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    Drachinifel goes into quite a bit of detail about the USN torpedo shemozzle here if you have a spare 30 minutes...

    To quote one of the comments;
    "Untested hardware makes it to production in the middle of a shooting war. Development team remains in denial about any issues. Hilarity ensues."


    The Mark 14 Torpedo - Failure is Like Onions - YouTube
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    Book burning/ book bans

    things that make me go HMMMMMMM

    "A school district in the US state of Utah has removed the Bible from elementary and middle schools for containing "vulgarity and violence".


    The move follows a complaint from a parent that the King James Bible has material unsuitable for children.


    Utah's Republican government passed a law in 2022 banning "pornographic or indecent" books from schools.


    Most of the books that have been banned so far pertain to topics such as sexual orientation and identity.


    The banning of the Bible comes amid a larger effort by US conservatives in states to ban teachings on controversial topics such as LGBT rights and racial identity. Bans on certain books deemed offensive are also in place in Texas, Florida, Missouri and South Carolina. Some liberal states have also banned books in some schools and libraries, citing perceived racially offensive content.



    The Utah decision was made this week by the Davis School District north of Salt Lake City after a complaint filed in December 2022. Officials say they have already removed the seven or eight copies of the Bible they had on their shelves, noting that the text was never part of students' curriculum.



    The committee did not elaborate on its reasoning or which passages contained "vulgarity or violence".


    According to the Salt Lake Tribune newspaper, the parent who complained said the King James Bible "has 'no serious values for minors' because it's pornographic by our new definition", referring to the 2022 book-ban law.


    "

    Killing first borns perhaps?

  8. #2568
    3toes is offline Wizard Silver Subscriber
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    The person who did this was making a political statement about the law as it was drafted rather than the Bible itself. Apparently most of the schools in the area covered by the law did not have a copy in their library anyway

  9. #2569
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    Glassholes

    "Virtual, augmented and mixed reality has been decidedly ho-hum so far. Some of the gadgets deploying the technology have even been derisively mocked, with the most notable example being Google’s internet-connected glasses released more than a decade ago. After Google co-founder Sergey Brin initially drummed up excitement about the device by demonstrating an early model’s potential “wow factor” with a skydiving stunt staged during a San Francisco tech conference, consumers quickly became turned off to a product that allowed its users to surreptitiously take pictures and video. The backlash became so intense that people who wore the gear became known as “Glassholes”, leading Google to withdraw the product a few years after its debut.

    "
    Link to yarn


    Apple is spitting out some $3000+ ones my kids seem a bit ho hum about I was chuckling about googles glasses mostly

  10. #2570
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    88 pubs that have operated in Clunes.!

    Murders and more. 'What is cool' and 'what is not', can be history or can be about to be forgotten as well. Micro Film, Floppy disks, CD, PDF ...... as technology evolves gold mining has changed. So has how we store information. News papers can be stored for some time. Perhaps not for ever of course

    This is cool trivia from several sides I thought. MP3 music anyone?



    Clunes Museum uncovers new stories while digitising historic local newspaper collection - ABC News

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