Oh, and hey Donger, welcome to the thread, and thanks for participating. Interested in history are you...?

;)

:cuss:

Yeah, I was thinking there was one American division that had some sort of flaming skull as their symbol. I lack the verve to look for it, though.

December 11

1282. Llwelyn the Last, the last native Prince of Wales, is killed in battle. While of questionable historical significance, clearly I couldn't really let this event passed unmentioned. His father, Peter the Penultimate, died young. And if you know anything of the Welsh, you know that Peter couldn't really be his name because it doesn't have mutliple double consonants, the letter "y" once or twice, like Llwelyn's real father, whose name was in fact Gruffydd, or his uncle Dafydd.

1941. Germany declares war on the United States following the US declaration of war against Germany's ally, Japan, following Pearl Harbor. In retrospect, this wasn't likely their brightest move.

1972. Apollo 17 becomes the last Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

2008. Bernie Madoff is arrested and charged with a $50 billion ponzi scheme.

2010. Mark Madoff, Bernie's oldest son, commits suicide on the two year anniversary of his father's arrest.

December 12

627. In the climatic battle of the Byzantine-Sassanid War, the Byzantine Army under Emperor Heraclius defeats, narrowly, the Sassanids. Though the defeat was narrow, the results were cataclysmic. The Sassanids overthrow their ruler, and are forced to sue for peace, giving the Byzantine Empire much land, an indemnity and, most important to that very religious culture, the return of the True Cross and other religious artifacts lost in 614 when Jerusalem was taken.

1098. In yet another example of the moral destitution of much of the Crusading done under the auspices of the Church, Crusaders during the First Crusade breach the town walls of Ma'arrat al-Numan (in modern Syria) after a lengthy siege and butcher 20,000 people. They also, reportedly, resort to cannibalism after food runs short. The memory of this event will be imprinted across the Islamic world for centuries.

1917. Father Edward Flanagan founds Boys Town.

2000. The Supreme Court releases its decision in Bush v. Gore.

December 13

1636. The Massachusetts Bay Colony forms three regiments to defend the colony against Pequot Indians. Thus, today is recognized as the founding of the US National Guard.

1769. Dartmouth College is founded.

1809. A doctor performs the first ovariotomy (removal of ovaries), cutting out a 22 pound tumor.

1862. The Battle of Fredericksburg, a crushing defeat of the Union by the Confederates.

1939. In the first major naval battle of WWII, the German pocket battleship Graf Spee engages with three British cruisers. The British ships got the worst of the exchange, as one might expect, but then shadowed the GErman commerce raider into the neutral port of Montevideo, in South America. The British planted false information that an overwhelming fleet was assembling almost immediately outside of the port, which entirely fooled the Germans into thinking they couldn't fight their way out of the harbor. Such a force was assembling, of course, but would take some time to get there. After communicating iwth Germany, the German commanded decided to scuttle his ship, reportedly infuritating Hitler, and then committed suicide on December 19.

2003. Former Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein is captured.

http://www.postcardsfrom.com/cards/990831f.jpg

http://thehangar.com/catalog/images/AMERICAN%20FLAG.jpg

:D

The NAZIs surface fleet activities in WWII were almost quaint.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...uth_Dunham.jpg

This is the earliest known image of Dartmouth College. It appeared in a 1793 issue of Massachusetts Magazine.

I've heard of Dartmouth all my life, and this beautiful picture finally prompted me to look them up and see where they're at. I've never known. (Hanover, NH)

Yes, though the Graf Spee had some success before she was caught. But in fairness to the Germans, nobody understood, pre-war and early war, the degree to which air power would dominate.

And Repulse and Prince of Wales are testimony to that.

Yeah, it's pretty much nestled in a quaint New England town. Very nice campus. I've been to some college games there -- my dad was a huge Yale fan as his brothers went there.

Nice edit. Yes, but the Battle of Taranto changed all that.

Sure, but by then the Germans couldn't exactly change their overall naval strategy. They had alot invested in the surface assets that they had, which was really built towards repeating the Battle of Jutland -- not that they really had sufficient assets to do that anyway. But in any event, they certainly didn' thave any aircraft carriers or anything. Instead they had tons of investment in ships like the Tirpitz, which really did little but tie down equally useless (except for countering the Tirpitz/Bismarck etc.) British heavy surface vessels and serve as a target for air raids.

By the time the Germans "perfected" their U-boats -- both in terms of technological capability and mass production, ASDIC and cracking Enigma more than offset the German submarine program successes.