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Post by beccabear67 on May 27, 2020 0:31:16 GMT -5
I'm a little surprised at the video by the Smithsonian though. Standards have fallen!  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 4, 2020 20:11:33 GMT -5
76 years ago, today (well, technically, last night), Allied forces landed on the beaches and countryside of Normandy (via the airborne operations), to begin the process of pushing the forces of fascism out of the occupied European countries.
Snoopy is over at Bill Mauldin's house, having a root beer to toast those who stood up to be counted, when the world needed them, and those who never returned.
Share a toast to all of those who stand up to be counted, when their families, neighbors, communities, provinces, countries and world needs them, no matter the odds. Tyrrany cannot stand when people stand together.
**edit: jumped the gun. That's what happens when you argue with idiots about masks all day and forget the day. June 6 is the beach landings, night of June 5 Airborne and I could swear I read something about a submarine insertion once; but, that might have been well in advance,, as I know they collected beach samples to analyze the landing sites, well in advance.**
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 5, 2020 12:43:45 GMT -5
One great uncle was in some wave that landed on Juno beach, and I'm not sure where my Dutch grandfather came in (he was also with the Canadians under our old flag with the ensign in the corner)... he was a sharpshooter and didn't collect his medals until the early '80s. Met my Dad's mother liberating Holland and brought them over here to Hamilton, Ontario where there was and still is a large Dutch population, then he was transferred by a company to the west coast. I knew both but never heard either talk about their war experiences other than the great uncle liked England a lot and looked up our old relatives there and some of the photos from that are still in the photo album. A younger great uncle was in the mop-up afterward, and their brother, my Leeds grandfather worked at the shipyard during the war having lost an eye in childhood.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 5, 2020 17:07:44 GMT -5
A bit of recent history:
I just learned that Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention to world affairs! The name change reflects the way the inhabitants actually refer to their country, which is pretty sensible.
I probably wouldn't get used to saying Suomi instead of Finland, though!
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 5, 2020 18:05:24 GMT -5
A bit of recent history: I just learned that Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention to world affairs! The name change reflects the way the inhabitants actually refer to their country, which is pretty sensible. I probably wouldn't get used to saying Suomi instead of Finland, though! Lots of Finns settled hereabouts (in neighborhoods called Finn Town and Shark City, for which a schoolbus is still named), so we have a Suomi Road nearby, which for years I guessed was a Native American word until someone set me straight. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 5, 2020 20:24:15 GMT -5
A bit of recent history: I just learned that Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention to world affairs! The name change reflects the way the inhabitants actually refer to their country, which is pretty sensible. I probably wouldn't get used to saying Suomi instead of Finland, though! I had to enlighten one of my team that the reason she couldn't find South Korea in the international shipping menu was because it was under Korea (Republic) as the actual name is The Republic of Korea, not South Korea, just as the North is the People's Republic of Korea. I thought about telling her about the days when there was the the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Congo (Brazzaville), until the Congo was renamed Zaire, until it reverted back........ There were times where the Atlas needed little pocket inserts for certain parts of the world. When I was in my early teens, my mother took my sister and I on a trip to Boston. While there, we visited the Christian Science Building and the globe that they have in there, made of glass, where you walk through it, on a walkway. It was built in the 30s (the Mapparium) and reflected the world at that time...  |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jun 5, 2020 20:46:23 GMT -5
A bit of recent history: I just learned that Swaziland changed its name to Eswatini in 2018. Clearly I'm not paying enough attention to world affairs! The name change reflects the way the inhabitants actually refer to their country, which is pretty sensible. I probably wouldn't get used to saying Suomi instead of Finland, though! I had to enlighten one of my team that the reason she couldn't find South Korea in the international shipping menu was because it was under Korea (Republic) as the actual name is The Republic of Korea, not South Korea, just as the North is the People's Republic of Korea. I thought about telling her about the days when there was the the Congo (Kinshasa) and the Congo (Brazzaville), until the Congo was renamed Zaire, until it reverted back........ There were times where the Atlas needed little pocket inserts for certain parts of the world. When I was in my early teens, my mother took my sister and I on a trip to Boston. While there, we visited the Christian Science Building and the globe that they have in there, made of glass, where you walk through it, on a walkway. It was built in the 30s (the Mapparium) and reflected the world at that time... It's still there and still very cool to see. I go back to the days when we learned about the Belgian Congo. Yikes! For about 25 years or so we have had a wallpaper world map that covers one wall in a basement office. It just fits, with only a bit of the polar areas and some of the Pacific having to be clipped to make it fit. That's always been fun to use, but what made it unique was that every country's name is written as it is in its language. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2020 0:08:53 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2020 10:58:24 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail.
I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 10, 2020 11:06:25 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail. I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought. According to the Department of Veteran's Affairs there are approximately 300,000 remaining WWII veterans in the U.S. They are projected to all be gone by 2044. |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 10, 2020 13:20:36 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail. I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought. I've always been curious. Is there much attention paid to the end of the War in the Pacific (V-J Day) or is V-E Day the only celebration? |
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Post by Prince Hal on Jul 10, 2020 13:26:03 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail. I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought. According to the Department of Veteran's Affairs there are approximately 300,000 remaining WWII veterans in the U.S. They are projected to all be gone by 2044. Whichever of them are still around in 2044 will be extreme outliers, like Albert Woolson: www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2019/09/minnesotan-albert-henry-woolson-was-the-last-surviving-civil-war-veteran/I was too young to see any Civil War vets in the various town parades, but there were a couple from the Spanish-American War who marched. The youngest of those were probably born circa 1880, so they'd have been in their early 80s if/ when I saw them. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 10, 2020 13:57:57 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail. I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought. I've always been curious. Is there much attention paid to the end of the War in the Pacific (V-J Day) or is V-E Day the only celebration? Yes, we have VJ Day commemorations here, too. This year, I guess it’ll be relatively low-key due to the global health emergency, but we’ll commemorate as ever. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 10, 2020 15:00:31 GMT -5
My father-in-law was born on V-J Day...the actual V.J. Day in 1945. So it makes him the oldest Baby Boomer.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,199 
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Post by Confessor on Jul 10, 2020 18:44:49 GMT -5
The Battle of Britain began 80 years ago today. Of course, there are many great sites covering it in detail. I feel I can never truly grasp the sacrifices made by all of those active during WWII. With the 75th anniversary of the end of the war being commemorated this year, it makes me sad to think that, in years to come, there’ll be no surviving WWII veterans. That said, despite the global health emergency, here in the UK we celebrated VE Day as best we could under distancing guidelines. I heard of quite a few street commemorations that stuck to distancing guidelines while honouring those who fought. On a related topic, I hated how the UK television coverage of the 75th Anniversary of VE Day was "hijacked" by coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown. I felt that juxtaposing images of brave young men fighting and dying for liberty and their families suffering on the home front with clips of people social distancing outside a supermarket or engaging in self-congratulatory public applause for health workers, as if they were in any way comparable degrees of sacrifice, was really poor form. Coronavirus has been very inconvenient for a lot of us and many people have lost elderly loved ones, for sure, but it's not like having lived through the trauma, terror and horror of WW2 for six years. |
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