PCCs/PCIs or as we in the business say "Pre combat checks/inspections" that entire mission goes a completely different way if not for the US Forces not having their NVGs. Critical error. The informant also screwed them by getting cold feet and setting up in front of the wrong house. Satellite communications were shit. Eye in the sky would tell them to turn but by the time the relay was done they had already passed the right "turn". So many more screw ups. I served with Steele in Iraq, that mission haunts him.
Knowing whether anyone is actually reading would help me get enthusiastic about reviving this thread. On May 15, 1718, London lawyer James Puckle is granted a patent for his "Puckle Gun," a manually operated flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder. Intended for use on ships, it is considered by some historians to be the first machine gun, though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. Apparently a bit of a loose cannon himself, Puckle claimed his gun could fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks. Whatever the shape of the projectiles, the Puckle Gun was a commercial failure and not produced in any meaningful quantity. (photo is of a replica in an England museum)
On May 16, 1960, Ted Maiman unveils the first working optical laser. It is a ruby laser, so-called because it uses a synthetic ruby as its gain medium. Although they're now mostly obsolete, ruby lasers were the standard for military range finders, were used in early holograph technology, and in cosmetic medicine for hair and tattoo removal. Maiman's original model still worked the last time it was switched on for demonstration, in 2010. On May 16, 1991, Queen Elizabeth II becomes the first British monarch to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress. The day before (during the Queen's 13-day visit to the U.S.), Elizabeth had spoken from the White House, behind a battery of microphones so large it completely blocked her face from the cameras. Commentator called the speech a "talking hat." At the Capitol, Elizabeth addressed the packed House chamber from the main speaker podium, beginning with,"I do hope you can see me from where you are," receiving a roar of laughter for her wit. Elizabeth referred to Congress and the British Parliament as "the twin pillars of our civilizations," adding that the ideals they represent "must be nurtured through fluctuation and change."
On May 17, 1756, Great Britain formally declares war on France, launching what will come to be known as the Seven Years' War. Sparked by disputes over territorial claims in North America, it could arguably called the first world war, as the conflict took place on four continents (mostly Europe and North America, though clashes also occurred in Africa and Asia) and involved about 15 nations before it concluded. In the end, France ceded much of its North American territory to Great Britain, which also got Spanish Florida in the bargain reached in the 1763 Treaty of Paris. (drawing depicts a British attack on the French colony in modern-day New Brunswick, Canada) On May 17, 1858, members of the Melbourne Football Club sit down and draft "The Ten Rules of the Melbourne Football Club," which will become the basis for Australian rules football. Australian schools had been organizing football clubs and competing against each other for several years in a game which generally resembled British rugby. The MFC rules were aimed at reducing the violence of the original game (British rugby rules of the time, for example, allowed players to kick opponents in the shins. This was banned in The Ten Rules). Australia today has more than 25,000 professional and amateur "Aussie-rules" football clubs and the Australian Football League Grand Final is second only to India's Premier League (cricket) Final among the world's highest club sport attendances. On May 17, 2006, the obsolete USS Oriskany is intentionally sunk off the coast of Florida as an artificial reef. The last of the Essex-class carriers to be commissioned, the Oriskany missed the end of WWII but served in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Decommissioned and sold for scrap in the mid-1990's, the Navy re-acquired the Oriskany after shipbreakers failed to move on the scrap contract for several years. After two years of environmental remediation, she was carefully sunk upright in 210 feet of water off the coast of Pensacola, FL, the first Navy vessel - and to date the largest ship - to be sunk as an artificial reef. Managed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and known in diving circles as "The Great Carrier Reef", the Oriskany is listed as one of the ten most popular scuba diving sites in the world by The Times of London.
On May 20, 1983, Science journal publishes two papers, - one by American biomedical researcher Robert Gallo, the other by a pair of French researchers - both of which claim to have isolated the virus that causes AIDS. Although the two papers at first appeared to be contradictory, further investigation would reveal both research teams had found the same virus, which in 1986 was named Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). (micrograph of a white blood cell. The green dots are HIV-1 virus) On May 20, 1609, publisher Thomas Thorpe registers "Shakespeare's Sonnets" in London's Stationers' Register, essentially the logbook for England's publishing industry. Thorpe may have published the Sonnets from an unauthorized copy of The Bard's manuscript; the truth of its publication is unknown. Sonnets are 14-line poems that follow a particular rhyming structure, first used in 13th century Italian poetry. While the Italian sonnets were usually in praise of goddess-like, unobtainable qualities of womanhood, "Shakespeare's Sonnets" were written in both male and female voice, and included more realistic aspects of sexual relationships. There are 13 copies of the original publication (which doesn't include sonnets that were written as part of Shakespearian plays like Romeo and Juliet) still in existence.
On May 21, 1979, San Francisco homosexuals riot in response to a lenient conviction for assassin Dan White. A policeman and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors (the city/county legislative body), White had the previous November assassinated fellow Supervisor Harvey Milk, one of the nation's first openly gay legislators, along with Mayor George Moscone over political differences. Originally charged with first degree murder, the charges were later reduced to voluntary manslaughter, the most lenient possible charge. The city's gay community was outraged and rioted in front of City Hall, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage and injuring dozens of policemen, who avoided fighting back for several hours. When they finally did retaliate, roughly 140 protesters were injured. Gay leaders would refuse to apologize for the "White Night" riot, and were instrumental in seeing interim Mayor Diane Feinstein elected full-time, getting a promise of better relations and the appointment of a pro-gay police chief in return. On May 21, 1932, Amelia Earhardt lands in Derry, Ireland, becoming the first woman to cross the Atlantic on a solo nonstop flight. Earhardt (who had become the first woman to cross the Atlantic as a passenger four years earlier) took off from Newfoundland just under 15 hours earlier. Her flight plan called for her to land in Paris, as Charles Lindberg had done five years to the day earlier, but poor weather conditions and mechanical trouble with her Lockheed Vega 5B forced her to set down early. The Vega (below) is now on display in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. On May 21, 2017 in Nassau, NY, animals perform as part of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for the last time. Animal acts were a universal part of circus displays well before Ringling Brothers World's Greatest Shows (established 1884) acquired Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth in 1909, and merged the two spectacles in 1919. The circus was the target of numerous lawsuits and protests by animal rights groups over mistreatment of the animals (some real, some perceived), and in 2015 it was announced that Ringling Brothers' 13 elephants would be retired to a conservation facility owned by the company, this occuring in 2016. The full retirement of all animal acts followed in 2017, and Ringling Brothers went on an extended hiatus, resuming in September 2023 without animals.
On May 22, 1906, Orville and Wilbur Wright are granted U.S. Patent #821,393 for their "Flying-Machine." The Wright Brothers had, in fact, been beaten into the rhealm of mechanically-powered human flight by a couple of decades, most notably by German Otto Lilienthal (who the Wrights called a "major inspiration" to their efforts) and Frenchman Clement Ader. What set the Wright Flyer apart from their creations was its ability to achieve stable, sustained and controllable flight. On May 22, 1455, a royal army commanded by Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, is defeated by Richard, the Duke of York, and his allies at The First Battle of St. Albans, just north of London. The Wars of the Roses are underway. Known simply as the Civil Wars during the 30 or so years of conflict, they became known as the Wars of the Roses thanks to the writings of Sir Walter Scott in the 19th century, who referenced Shakespeare's use of the roses (red for the House of Lancaster, white for the House of York) as identifying badges in his play, Henry VI, Part 1. The Battle of St. Albans was unique to warfare of the time in that it was actually fought in the streets of the town of St. Albans itself, rather than in open terrain. (photo shows a commemorative procession in modern-day St. Albans) On May 22, 1969, Snoopy, the lunar module of the Apollo 10 mission (astronauts Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan aboard) descends to within 7.8 nautical miles of the moon's surface. Apollo 10 was planned as the "dress rehearsal" for the actual moon landing to be attempted by Apollo 11, and 7.8 miles was the "go/no go" point at which a powered descent for landing would begin. It was debated within NASA's top circles before the launch that it made no sense to fly so close to the moon without landing, and that A10 should make the landing. It was eventually decided that more information was needed about the effects of lunar gravity on the rendezvous in orbit by the command and lunar modules, and return-to-Earth trajectory before a landing could be attempted. The caution turned out to be well-placed; Snoopy would abruptly fall into a violent spin shortly after the lower, descent stage was detached, causing Stafford and Cernan to manually bring the spacecraft under control. (photo shows the ascent stage of Snoopy appraching the CSM Charlie Brown for docking in lunar orbit).
On May 23, 1430, Joan of Arc is captured by Burgundian troops during the Siege of Compiegne. Joan had been rallying troops loyal to King Charles VII to defend the city from Duke Phillip of Burgundy's forces for several weeks, and had arrived at the city ten days before. On the 23rd her troops were in retreat and she was commanding a rear guard action when her screening force found itself trapped outside the closed gates of the town (scholars still debate whether the closure of the gates was a prudent but poorly-timed defense decision, or an intentional betrayal of Joan). Phillip called off the siege months later, and aside from Joan's capture, it was a minor action of the Hundred Years' War. On May 23, 1937, John D. Rockefeller dies of arteriosclerosis at his home in Florida. He was 98 years old. Born in New York in 1839, Rockefeller was already part of several partnerships in the oil drilling business by his 20th birthday. He founded Standard Oil in 1870, which was the nation's most profitable business by the turn of the century. Standard was ordered broken up as a monopoly by the Supreme Court in 1911, but selling off parts of the company only increased Rockefeller's wealth. Within 2 years his personal wealth equalled 3% of the nation's GDP, and he became the nation's first billionaire not long after. Rockefeller founded 3 universities including the University of Chicago, and became the nation's model for personal philanthropy in his last 40 years, especially in the field of medical research. When adjusted for inflation, his wealth at its peak would be the equivalent of roughly $24 billion today. On May 23, 1895, the New York Public Library is established. The NYPL was originally an amalgamation of 3 private libraries, set up by real estate mogul John Jacob Astor, philanthropist James Lenox and former NY governor Samuel Tilden. It is the 2nd largest library in the US (behind the Library of Congress) and 4th largest in the world, with 92 branches and more than 53 million pieces of material, including the first Gutenberg Bible brought to the New World - originally part of the Lenox Collection (below right). Its famed main branch on 5th Avenue (below) opened May 23, 1911 and is a National Historic Landmark.
On May 24, 1626, Peter Minuit, a German merchant in employment of the Dutch West India Company, purchases Manhattan Island from the area's indigineous natives, the Lanape. In exchange, Minuit gives the natives a variety of goods (the items are not recorded, but a subsequent trade for Staten Island by Minuit went for various cooking and farming implements, fabric and wampum, a traditional shell bead of the Netherlands). Minuit sets the value of his goods at 60 guilders. In 1844, New York historian John Brodhead would write about the trade and convert the 60 guilders to 24 US dollars, starting the famous tale of American folklore. At modern conversion rates, 60 guilders would equal about $1,150. On May 24, 1738, English theologian and evangelist John Wesley has his "Aldersgate experience", which will set him on the path to found the Methodist religous movement. Wesley had recently returned from an unsuccessful 2-year ministry in Savannah, GA, and was in spiritual crisis when he attended a religious meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. He would later say that hearing a reading that night from a passage written by Protestant reformer Martin Luther renewed his faith. Within 2 years, Wesley would break from the Moravian Christian sect with which he was associated and begin laying the foundation for the Methodist church. On May 24, 1958, the United Press news agency acquires the International News Service, forming United Press International (UPI). Originally started by midwest newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps (below) after the Associated Press refused to service several of his papers, UPI competed with AP and others in the business of providing national - and later, global - news stories for a fee to publications who were limited to local coverage. At its peak, UPI had more than 200 bureaus in 92 countries, and had more than 6,000 subscribers. Budget troubles caused the agency to begin cutting services in the 1980's. Today, UPI caters mostly to internet news services, and concentrates on international topics originiating from Central Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
