DECEMBER 18 — 1972 Nixon announces Christmas Bombing Campaign; 1903 News of Wright Bros. Flight hits the world; 2003 Michael Jackson charged with lewd conduct on children
DECEMBER 18
1972 – Christmas bombing campaign announced by Nixon.
…For the last three years, talks between North Vietnam and America had come to a stalemate, which was finally broken in October 1972. On October 26th, Chief US Negotiator Henry Kissinger announced at a press conference that Peace is at hand, which showed up on headlines throughout America. The expectation was that the war would end soon. But South Vietnam President Theu had not heard about the agreement and was furious. He refused to accept the terms, and on December 16th, peace talks collapsed.
On December 18, President Nixon announced Linebacker II, and B-52s and 11 other fighter bombers unleashed 20,000 tons of bombs on the cities of Hanoi and Haiphong. There were two problems the Air Force had to address, one was the inexperience of the B-52s to bomb heavily defended areas since previously they had been bombing undefended jungles, and the other poor and predictable planning caused high numbers of B-52s shot down in the first four days of the operation, which the Air Force quickly corrected.
North Vietnam claimed over 1,600 civilians died in the bombings. As with just about everything else regarding the war in Vietnam, this was a controversial move. Some argue that the Christmas bombings forced North Vietnam to the negotiations to sign what would eventually be the Paris Peace Treaty which would end the war, and others argue that all the Christmas Bombings accomplished was more death and destruction than necessary. Even Kissinger himself supposedly said, We bombed the North Vietnamese into accepting our concessions.
1890 – HB Edwin Howard Armstrong, called the most prolific and influential inventor in radio history. He patented the super-regenerative circuit in 1922, the superheterodyne receiver in 1918, and perhaps most importantly, frequency modulation, or FM radio.
1903 – Here are the headlines from the Dayton Daily News: Dayton Boys Emulate Great Santos-Dumont.
Already the conspiracy theories begin, just one day after the Dayton Boys, a.k.a. the Wright Brothers, made aviation history.
As many of you know, I love a good conspiracy theory. My favorite being John Lennon still living in at an undisclosed location somewhere in the south pacific writing songs for Justin Bieber. A lot of times conspiracy theories can be quite amusing, even hilarious. But most of the times they’re just insulting without any proof of anything.
For the local Dayton, North Carolina to even compare to the Wright brothers ability to lift off, fly and successfully land a plane for the first time in recorded history, to a Brazilian aviator wannabe named Alberto Santos-Dumont is truly an apple and oranges comparison, considering the only thing Santos-Dumont every flew was a balloon that probably had as much hot air in it as there was in the head of whoever wrote this article to the Dayton Daily News. Since you simply wouldn’t compare the flight of a hot-air balloon to an actual plane, let’s move on to the conspiracy theories regarding the Wright Brothers great invention.
From Germany, Gustave Whitehead gets credit for also designing and building an airplane. Paul Jackson, who wrote the book jane’s All the World’s Aircraft, maintains Whitehead was the real inventor of the airplane, though no one who was a reliable witness actually saw him flying one. A photograph of a well-designed plane may have been dated six years before the Oroville and Wilbur built theirs, but even then, probably not.
In addition, the country of France has boasted about coming up with aviation technology, and have zero proof of it. If anything, it was the horrifying accidental death of German glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal in 1896 that taught Wilbur and Oroville what not to do in flight, and at the very least, got them to choose Kitty Hawk North Carolina as their airport. With inclines for easy liftoff and sandy grounds for a smooth landing, the Wright Brothers get the credit, and no one else does.
Period.
1867 – The Angola Horror.
…About 200 people boarded a train bond for Buffalo, NY for what would be their last ride. The Lake Shore Express departed around 2:20 in the afternoon and chugged its way towards Angola, approaching a wooden concrete bridge over Big sister Creek; the same bridge where, just 2 years prior the procession of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral crossed. The train hit a frog in the tracks, followed by a metal spike, and lost control the last car uncoupled from the train and fell into a gorge. Those who survived the fall burned and suffocated to death, as an overturned stove fell, spilling hot coals on them. Fuel from the kerosene lamps ignited the coals into flames and the bus was instantly on fire. Only a few survived the disaster.
In an ironic twist of fate, John Rockefeller was supposed to be on that train, but was very uncharacteristically late and therefore he missed it, saving his life. No doubt as Rockefeller would point out later, he would have been on that last carriage had he not missed the train.
1941—American headlines: the Washington Post read Japs in Borneo Peril Singapot, New York Times: Rationing of Tires to Start on Jan 4.
2003 — Michael Jackson was formally charged with seven counts of committing lewd or lascivious acts upon a child under the age of fourteen and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent.
2012 — Great Gonzos! The Discovery Channel announced that because of poor ratings, Ted Nugent’s reality TV show American Guns was not being renewed and that they had no plans to air any re-runs.