On this day.....

Benoit Douville · Post by **Benoit Douville** » 20 Jul 2006 23:59

-July 20th 1944: At 12:42 p.m. CET, a powerful bomb explodes in the wooden briefing hut at the Wolfsschanze (Wolf's Lair), Hitler's secret HQ near Rastenburg in East Prussia, during Hitler's Lagebesprechung (daily noon-time conference on operations on all fronts) with his chiefs of staff and their aides of the OKW and OKH. Aside from minor injuries, Hitler is unharmed, but four people, Colonel Brandt, Generals Korten and Schmundt, as well as a stenographer are killed, several other severely wounded. The bomb was placed by Colonel Claus Count von Stauffenberg, chief of staff of the Ersatzheer (Reserve or Home Army) who had volunteered to take on the task of killing Hitler on behalf of a group of high Wehrmacht officers, among them Field Marshall von Witzleben and Generaloberst Beck, to overthrow the Nazi regime and end the war. He returns to Berlin, mistakenly informing his co-conspirators at the War Ministry that Hitler was dead and that Operation Valkyrie, the Army's longstanding emergency plan to secure the vital government offices in case of an internal revolt, should go forward so as to be used to establish the conspiracy's hold on the levers of power over the Reich. Due to the prompt actions by Dr. Goebbels, Reich Propaganda Minister, who speaks with Hitler on the telephone and then orders the Wachbataillon Berlin (Guards Battalion) under Major Remer to surround all government offices and arrest any suspicious person, the Putsch is foiled. Stauffenberg and two of his aides are captured and brought before a summary court convened by Generaloberst Fromm, C-in-C of the Home Army; they are convicted of high treason and shot by a firing squad the same evening. In the coming months, some 5,000 persons implicated in the conspiracy will be executed. In the Arctic Ocean, 7 German U-boats begin laying minefields off the Soviet Lend-Lease port of Archangelsk.

Regards

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 21 Jul 2006 21:32

21 July 1944

The Battle of Guam begins. US forces land at 2 beach-heads on the island in an attempt to quickly capture the airfield from Japanese control. The battle would rage for 4 more weeks before American forces were victorious.

waldorf · Post by **waldorf** » 21 Jul 2006 22:03

July 21

1944 Hitler to Germany: "I'm still alive."

On this day in 1944, Adolf Hitler takes to the airwaves to announce that the attempt on his life has failed and that "accounts will be settled."

Hitler had survived the bomb blast that was meant to take his life. He had suffered punctured eardrums, some burns and minor wounds, but nothing that would keep him from regaining control of the government and finding the rebels. In fact, the coup d'etat that was to accompany the assassination of Hitler was put down in a mere 11 1/2 hours. In Berlin, Army Major Otto Remer, believed to be apolitical by the conspirators and willing to carry out any orders given him, was told that the Fuhrer was dead and that he, Remer, was to arrest Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda. But Goebbels had other news for Remer-Hitler was alive. And he proved it, by getting the leader on the phone (the rebels had forgotten to cut the phone lines). Hitler then gave Remer direct orders to put down any army rebellion and to follow only his orders or those of Goebbels or Himmler. Remer let Goebbels go. The SS then snapped into action, arriving in Berlin, now in chaos, just in time to convince many high German officers to remain loyal to Hitler.

Arrests, torture sessions, executions, and suicides followed. Count Claus von Stauffenberg, the man who actually planted the explosive in the room with Hitler and who had insisted to his co-conspirators that "the explosion was as if a 15-millimeter shell had hit. No one in that room can still be alive." But it was Stauffenberg who would not be alive for much longer; he was shot dead the very day of the attempt by a pro-Hitler officer. The plot was completely undone.

Now Hitler had to restore calm and confidence to the German civilian population. At 1 a.m., July 21, Hitler's voice broke through the radio airwaves: "I am unhurt and well.... A very small clique of ambitious, irresponsible...and stupid officers had concocted a plot to eliminate me.... It is a gang of criminal elements which will be destroyed without mercy. I therefore give orders now that no military authority...is to obey orders from this crew of usurpers.... This time we shall settle account with them in the manner to which we National Socialists are accustomed."

http://www.historychannel.com/tdih/tdih ... worldwarii

Guarnere · Post by **Guarnere** » 24 Jul 2006 15:14

July, 24. 1943

"Operation Gomorrah" begins. Royal Air Force (RAF) conducts a series of air raids on the city of Hamburg.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 27 Jul 2006 22:35

25th July 1943

Benito Mussolini is given a vote of no-confidence by the Fascist Grand Council. King Vittorio Emanuele III called Mussolini to his palace and stripped the dictator of his powers. Upon leaving the palace, Mussolini was swiftly arrested.

26th July 1941

In response to the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders the seizure of all Japanese assets in the United States.

Please help to keep this thread alive guys!!!

G. Trifkovic · Post by **G. Trifkovic** » 27 Jul 2006 23:13

27th of July, 1941

In and around Drvar,western Bosnia the uprising under the Guerilla HQ for Bosansko Grahovo area begins with the attacks on NDH gendearmie-stations. The day is still celebrated in Bosnia-Herzegovina as the "Day of the Uprising"

Cheers,

Gaius

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 29 Jul 2006 11:09

28th July 1942

Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into Russia. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so will be immediately killed.

28th July 1943

Operation Gomorrah - British aircraft bomb Hamburg in one of the heaviest raids of the war causing a firestorm that kills 42,000 German civilians.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 30 Jul 2006 10:49

30th July 1945

The USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. The ship had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian. Only 316 out of 1,196 men aboard survived the attack.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 31 Jul 2006 12:10

31 July 1945

Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 02 Aug 2006 00:52

1st August 1944

Anne Frank makes her last diary entry. Within a few days she and her family would be arrested by the Gestapo and shipped to Auschwitz concentration camp. Anne would die of typus at the Bergen-Belsen camp in March 1945 a few months before the end of the war. She was only 15 years old.

The Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation breaks out in Warsaw also on this day. Over the next few months 268,000 Poles would be killed and nearly 90% of the city of Warsaw would be destroyed in the failed rebellion.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 02 Aug 2006 15:24

2nd August 1934

Upon the death of President von Hindenburg, Adolf Hitler becomes Fuhrer of Germany with supreme powers.

2nd August 1945

The Potsdam Conference, in which the Allied Powers discuss the future of defeated Germany, concludes.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 03 Aug 2006 00:27

3rd August 1914

World War I gets underway when Germany declares war on France.

3rd August 1940

Italy begins its offensive against the British colony of Somaliland, in East Africa.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 04 Aug 2006 00:29

4th August 1914

Hostilities get underway in World War I. Germany invades Belgium and in response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States proclaims neutrality.

4th August 1944

A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse where they find Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family. Within a few days they will be shipped off to Auschwitz concentration camp.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 05 Aug 2006 21:17

5th August 1944

Possibly the biggest prison breakout in history occurs as 545 Japanese POWs attempt to escape outside the town of Cowra, New South Wales in Australia. Most are killed but many escape and later commit suicide. Five Australian guards also die.

Potsdamerplatz · Post by **Potsdamerplatz** » 06 Aug 2006 23:28

6th August 1945

The Atomic bombing of Hiroshima. An atomic bomb named Little Boy is dropped by the American B-29 Enola Gay on the city of Hiroshima in Japan at 8:16 a.m., killing 80,000 outright with another 60,000 dead by the end of the year due to fallout sickness. Ultimately, about 200,000 die due to the atomic bomb.