These are the days in History

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 17, 1986
Event: Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years War ends

The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War was a not-a-war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly, a small chain of islands off the southwestern coast of Great Britain. Nobody knew what the war was about, not a single shot was fired. No one had any idea whether or not war was actually declared. But just to be safe, the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly signed a peace treaty on this day in 1986, to put an end to a war that may or may not have actually happened.

[Conoros]

Today: April 17, 1986
Event: Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years War ends

The Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War was a not-a-war between the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly, a small chain of islands off the southwestern coast of Great Britain. Nobody knew what the war was about, not a single shot was fired. No one had any idea whether or not war was actually declared. But just to be safe, the Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly signed a peace treaty on this day in 1986, to put an end to a war that may or may not have actually happened.

There was a similar story about Berwick being at war with Russia since the Crimean war too, there was a "declaration of peace" between the mayor and visitor from a soviet newspaper. In the end, it turns out they were actually covered by the treaty signed at the end of the war anyway.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

Reminds me of another one- the First World War in fact lasted until the mid-60s, because Andorra was left out of the Versailles peace treaty. This makes Andorra unique in being the only country ever to fight two world wars simultaneously

[Master Gunner]

There was a similar story about Berwick being at war with Russia since the Crimean war too, there was a "declaration of peace" between the mayor and visitor from a soviet newspaper. In the end, it turns out they were actually covered by the treaty signed at the end of the war anyway.

I know I've covered Berwick before, I just forget what thread. But yeah, earlier legislation explicitly stated that references to England included Berwick (which previously would be stated as a separate entity in legislation and declarations, due to trading hands between England and Scotland so frequently), as well as Wales. Which would explain why Berwick wasn't mentioned in the declaration of war either.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 18, 1949
Event: Construction begins on the USS United States. It would be cancelled 5 days later, resulting in the Revolt of the Admirals.

There's no reason for having a Navy and Marine Corps. General Bradley tells me that amphibious operations are a thing of the past. We'll never have any more amphibious operations. That does away with the Marine Corps. And the Air Force can do anything the Navy can do nowadays, so that does away with the Navy.

In the early post-war period, during the subsequent downsizing of the military, there was significant debate over what direction to take military policy. The newly formed Air Force put forth that a doctrine of strategic nuclear bombing was all that was needed to serve the United State's military interests and prevent future attacks against American soil. The Navy disagreed, pointing to the dominance of the aircraft carrier in the Pacific Theater, as argued for the construction of a fleet of nuclear-capable super-carriers - in contrast to the Air Force's wishes for a fleet of trans-continental heavy nuclear-equipped bombers.

In early 1949 President Truman replaced the Secretary of Defence, James Forrestal, who supported the Navy's proposal with Louis A. Johnson, who supported the Air Force's. Johnson then ordered the cancellation of the Navy's new super-carrier, the United States, and attempted to transfer the Marine Corps's aviation assets to the Air Force (this was blocked by Congress).

The Navy was eventually granted the budget to build their supercarriers, a process which accelerated with the Korean War in 1950, although at a smaller size than originally planned. The Air Force argued that the decision to to make the Korean War non-nuclear did not detract from overall strategic objectives (which would require their B36 nuclear bombers), but limited warfare proved to be the norm throughout the nuclear era.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 19, 1987
Event: The Simpsons premieres as a short cartoon on The Tracey Ullman Show.

On this day in 1987, the Simpsons debuted. Oh how the times have changed

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 20, 1961
Event: End of the Bay of Pigs Invasion

During the Cold War, Cuba posed a problem to the United States. Prior to Castro, Cuban president Fulgencio Batista was very friendly to and had strong economic ties with the United States - he had even lived in the US from 1944 to 1952 (between the end of his term as a democratically elected president, and his attempt to get reelected. When he saw he was facing defeat in the election, he instead led a military coup to regain the presidency). However then the Cuban Revolution happened, and Castro cut ties with the United States and instead became friendly with the Soviet Union. The United States was afraid of having a communist country so close to home, as it would provide a base for offensive action against the United States. In 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis would arguably validate that fear, with the Soviets attempting to place nuclear missiles in Cuba.

So the US government decided that Castro had to go. The CIA recruited anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida in late 1960, and started training them as guerrilla troops for an invasion of Cuba to depose Castro. Over 1400 paramilitary troops, known as Brigade 2506, were recruited and assembled in Guatemala for the invasion attempt.

The invasion began on April 15 with diversionary landing attempts and the bombing of Cuban airfields by US aircraft painted in the colours of the Cuban air force. The main invasion force landed two days later, on April 17, and were quickly engaged by the actual Cuban air force, with Cuban ground forces soon following.

Over the next few days, several B-26s operated by the CIA were shot down by the Cuban air force and ground anti-aircraft fire, along with a failed night bombing of a Cuban air field due to poor weather.

Lacking sufficient air support (as obviously American aircraft couldn't engage offensively without openly declaring war), the tide of the ground battle quickly turned against Brigade 2506. American ships moved in to evacuate the surviving members of the Brigade, but many were captured by Cuban forces.


The end result of the attempted invasion was an embarrassment for both the Kennedy Administration and the CIA, and also resulted in even more strained relationships with many Latin-American countries. Cuba would forge even closer ties with the USSR and officially adopt communism following the incident.

[Prospero101]

It's worth noting that the CIA did this in cooperation with the Sicilian Mob.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 21, 1898
Event: The US begins blockading Cuban ports, and the start of the Spanish-American war.

The Cuban War of Independence, beginning in 1895, was the last of three wars against Spanish colonial control of the island. The Cubans had strong popular support in the United States, but officially the US government was neutral in the affair. Then in February the USS Maine, sent to Havana in response to fears over the safety of Americans in Cuba, was rocked by explosions and sunk in the harbour, killing 258 sailors on board. The actual cause of the explosion has never being discovered, but the opinion of the media and many politicians in the US was that it was the fault of the Spanish (leaving Hearst's motivations to sell more papers for another time).

In April the United States government passed resolutions officially supporting Cuban independence and demanding Spanish withdrawal. This was followed by the blockade of Cuban ports on the 21st, and a formal declaration of war on the 25th, which was backdated to the 21st.

US forces landed in Cuban-controlled areas of the country to establish a beachhead, with their initial focus being on seizing the port of Santiago, a significant Spanish port, and nearby Guantanamo Bay. Guantanamo Bay was important as the harbour there would protect US ships during hurricane season as they supported the assault on Santiago.

Spain eventually sued for peace with the United States, resulting in the Treaty of Paris (1898). According to the treaty, Spain gave up all claim to Cuba, surrendered Puerto Rico and Guam to the US, and sold the Philippines to the US for 20 million dollars (Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines also being involved in the Spanish-American war). While not explicitly stated in the treaty, it also elevated the United States to being a world power. Cuba itself was not allowed to participate in the peace treaty or the surrender of Spanish forces in Cuba, at the behest of the United States.

[Master Gunner]

It's worth noting that the CIA did this in cooperation with the Sicilian Mob.

"Allegedly". The same could (and has) being said of any CIA operation.

[Prospero101]

Well, this is the one that has the most evidence behind it, such as it is. A massive conspiracy between espionage and organized crime does make an excellent premise for a novel, though. I should write that down.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I'm not sure if it was the Bay of Pigs or another operation where the CIA trained, supplied and funded militants, as well as offering direct support in battle in such a way as to be pretty damn obvious to anything more than a casual observer, and categorically denied they were involved in the operation at all- even after getting a B-26 shot down and the CIA pilot captured.

[Prospero101]

Ix, the CIA will categorically deny having pizza for lunch with a crust in its hand.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I've seen enough of their handiwork to know that- just that incident was particularly noticeable for me.

[Master Gunner]

Yep, the aircraft were partially manned by Cuban exiles (and painted in Cuban Air Force colours as a false-flag operation), but four American crewman were among those shot down during the invasion. At least two CIA agents were also captured on the ground. The nearby American destroyers used launch the invasion and evacuate the survivors didn't help either.

It was a terrible idea all around, and the CIA's actions leading up to the operation are cited as a prime example of "groupthink".

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 22, 1993
Event: Version 1.0 of the Mosaic web browser is released.

Mosiac was not the first web browser (the very first was "WorldWideWeb", written by Tim Berners-Lee), however it is credited with popularizing the World Wide Web, and first implemented many features that were adopted by future browsers - such as displaying inline pictures and the GUI layout.

Mosiac was so named because it supported several protocols, such as FTP, NNTP (used by Usenet), and Gopher (a competitor to HTTP). One of the main reasons behind its popularity was that it was released for both Unix and Windows systems, making it available to those outside of academic and technical circles.

In mid-1994, Mosiac was downloaded 50,000 times a month, and its wide availability is said to have being a significant driving factor behind the growth of the web - from 26 web sites in November 1992, to 10,000 in 1995, and millions in 1998.

The original authors of Mosiac would go on to develop Netscape Navigator, from which the modern Mozilla Firefox browser is descended. The original version of Internet Explorer was also derived from Mosiac's source code.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 23, 1985
Event: The release of New Coke.

It is sometimes said that Coca-Cola changed the formula knowing people would react badly to it and petition for the formula to be changed back, resulting in a massive spike in sales after the reversal. As Coke's president responded, "We're not that dumb, and we're not that smart".

In the 1980's, Coca-Cola had a problem - Diet Coke was too popular. Past diet drinks had not received much widespread success, as they were often designed to resemble the original drink while missing several key ingredients, resulting in an "uncanny valley" of taste. Diet Coke was designed to be a unique taste that's as good as possible within the constraints of the nutritional goals. As a result, they made a drink that was just generally popular outside of people specifically looking for a "diet" drink.

So how was this a problem? Well, previously Coca-Cola was the best-selling soft drink, beating Pepsi by a wide margin. But now many Coke drinkers were switching to Diet Coke, which now occupied the #3 best-selling slot. Coke executives were worried that if they couldn't boost sales of regular Coke, they could lose the #1 spot to Pepsi, and they couldn't allow Pepsi to get the marketing boost of being the #1 soft drink (even if Coke+Diet Coke combined still sold more).

So Coke set out to create a new formula that would be more successful than Pepsi among the younger demographics, and even beat out regular Coke. And they succeeded. In blind taste tests, New Coke would regularly beat out both Pepsi and regular Coke. So they had every reason to believe that changing Coke to the new formula would be a widespread hit.

Needless to say, that didn't work out quite as expected. It turned out that the Coke brand was so heavily associated with the Coke taste, that people revolted against the change - especially in the Southern US, where Coke was considered part of their regional identity. Not necessarily because they didn't like it, but because it wasn't Coke. As one conversation overheard by a Coke executive went:

Have you tried it?"
"Yes."
"Did you like it?"
"Yes, but I'll be damned if I'll let Coca-Cola know that.

With people buying up all existing stock of regular Coke and importing it from overseas (the formula change only occurred in the US and Canada before switching back), much to the confusion of marketing executives, Coca-Cola reintroduced the old formula under the name "Coca-Cola Classic" after only three months. By the end of the year, Coke Classic was outselling everything else by a wide margin, with sales increasing at twice the rate of Pepsi's.

Later analysis would show that it was really only a very vocal minority who had driven the change back to Coke Classic, and the following introduction of Cherry Coke actually boosted Coke's revenues more than Coke Classic did, but the idea that Coke embodied certain values and was part of a cultural identity helped solidify Coke's market position and keep it in first place to the present day.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 24, 1990
Event: Launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Hubble is actually isn't that big for a telescope, at only 2.4 meters in diameter. Many observatories have telescopes over 8 meters in diameter, and planned European Extremely Large Telescope will have a segmented mirror almost 40 meters across.

The advantage of the Hubble Telescope (after its optics were replaced - one of the mirrors that went up originally was slightly warped, reducing its effectiveness) was that by being outside the atmosphere, it didn't have to deal with how light refracts in the atmosphere. Just by being free of atmospheric distortions, it was able to produce far better images than the best ground-based observatories of the time.

Modern advances in technology will let future ground observatories compete with the Hubble though. Adaptive Optics is a method where lasers are shined into the air to measure small changes in how the atmosphere is refracting light, and then the mirrors of the telescope are slightly distorted to reverse the effects of the refraction.

Not that we won't be launching more space telescopes though - the atmosphere blocks certain forms of light, requiring space telescopes to see in those parts of the spectrum. The future James Webb Space Telescope is an infrared telescope - it sees "heat", not visible light, which the atmosphere is very effective at blocking.

[Lord Chrusher]

Good description of HST, Master Gunner.

A couple caveats though:
Adaptive optics are not a perfect replacement to space based imaging. Although adaptive optics can provide higher spatial resolution compared to space based telescopes, they can not provide as wide a field of view. Also, adaptive optics can not always be used effectively for several reasons including weather, a lack of nearby guide stars or the United States Space Command.

One important capability that we will lose when Hubble stops working is access to a good ultraviolet telescope. HST can observe wavelengths as short as 115 nm while the atmosphere blocks light shorter than about 300 nm (The James Webb Space Telescope has a lower wavelength limit of 600 nm). Ultraviolet observations provide important information about star formation, young stars and chemical abundances.



Also, it slightly annoys me to see observing infrared wavelengths described as 'seeing heat'. Heat produces light at all wavelengths. Sunlight and light from an incandescent light bulb or a halogen lamp is also 'seeing' heat.

[Master Gunner]

Aren't both India and Russia planning to launch UV-capable telescopes in the next few years?

I know describing infrared as heat is wrong, but most people do equate infrared to heat, so I threw it in there.

[Lord Chrusher]

I knew about the Indian project (which is mostly X-ray telescope) but I was unaware of the Russian one which seems like more of a Hubble replacement in the UV.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 25, 1915
Event: The Battle of Gallipoli begins.

The Battle of Gallipoli was a campaign by ANZAC - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - as well as British and French forces against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War.

In 1915 Britain was looking for a way to get around the stalemate of the western front. One option was to force open the Baltic through an amphibious landing in Northern Germany to seize the Kiel Canal and enabling Denmark to enter the war on the Allied side.

The other option, which was eventually chosen, was deemed less dangerous and favoured by Churchill, was to take the Dardenelles and force the Ottomans (modern-day Turkey) to sue for peace and exit the war. This would open a supply line to Russia and allow Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania to enter the war.

The plan was for the ANZAC forced to land at a cove (now known as ANZAC cove) while the British and French forces would land later in the day at Cape Helles. They would advance to take out Turkish fortifications, allowing British ships to advance up the Dardenelles strait threaten Constantinople directly.

As it happened, due to mismanagement, misinformation, and lack of integration between naval and army operations, things did not go according to plan. The ANZAC force landed a mile off their intended landing zone, the strict British command structure didn't allow the ground forces to properly take advantage of their initial progress, and they soon found themselves surrounded by artillery fire and unable to advance off of the beaches.

The British and French landing did not go any better. Landing under heavy fire they were unable to take their initial objectives either, and were unable to do much more than establish a beachhead.

As the months wore on, disease and constant artillery fire took their toll. When Bulgaria did enter the war, it was on the German side, allowing the Germans to start reinforcing and resupplying the Ottoman troops. Their position increasingly untenable, the Allied forces were forced to withdraw, having never captured their Day 1 objectives.

[Master Gunner]

Today: April 26, 1986
Event: Chernobyl

There are a lot of things I could say about the accident at Chernobyl. The least of which is that it was a result of critical mismanagement, a lack of training and information sharing, and required everything that possibly could go wrong to do so - including things that were specific to Chernobyl's design.

Chernobyl is a particular passion of LRR's own Alex Steacy, who every year will do a livestream of some documentaries in commemoration of the event. Unfortunately I lost track of the days, and didn't get to this in advance, but Alex was kind enough to leave links to the documentaries he recommends here.




Something to keep in mind that the goal of the plant's design was to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons, not just to produce energy, and was heavily influenced by Soviet politics. Contemporary, or even older, reactor designs based around safely producing power, such as Canada's CANDU reactor, physically cannot fail in such a catastrophic manner. Modern reactors are designed with an even greater focus on safety.

[AdmiralMemo]

And, apparently, if you can't visit Chernobyl yourself, go play STALKER or watch his stream of it. Apparently, the layout of the game is pretty darn close, according to him.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

In 1915 Britain was looking for a way to get around the stalemate of the western front... The other option, which was eventually chosen, was deemed less dangerous and favoured by Churchill, was to take the Dardenelles and force the Ottomans (modern-day Turkey) to sue for peace and exit the war. This would open a supply line to Russia and allow Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania to enter the war.

One of Churchill's many disastrous pre-WWII political moves was convincing the high command to throw money and resources at this plan, which might generously be described as extremely optimistic. As John O'Farrell puts it:

"If we broke through in the Balkans, we could send an army through and force Germany to fight on a third front!"
"We don't have anyone to send, or any way of effectively, supplying them"
"OK, but we could use the Balkans as a route to send supplies to the Russians and break through from the East!"
"We don't have any supplies to send. Or any way of securing a 1000-mile supply chain"